


the old magic oddities show

by blueparacosm



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Angst, Bounty Hunters, Character Death, Comedy, Con Artists, Drama, Elemental Magic, Family Drama, Found Family, Fugitives, M/M, Mages, Mystery, Romance, Violence, Witches, all of the problems, bellamy cries an appropriate amount, murphy cries a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-05-30 04:32:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 47,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15089060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueparacosm/pseuds/blueparacosm
Summary: John Murphy is a con artist peddling pawn shop rejects as magic artifacts on the street. Bellamy Blake is a curator for a traveling magic antique show with a habit of taking in strays. When the curator takes off with an artifact that really works, Murphy will go to great lengths to get it back.The charming keeper and his eccentric family don't plan on making Murphy's heist an easy endeavor. Not at all.





	1. the red string of fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Red String of Fate: the invisible red thread circling the ankles of those fated to meet, to change one another's lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ☆ Copy and paste in new tab to set the mood: https://youtu.be/28Jnmqb5M3s ☆
> 
> NOTE: The ringleader narration and style of this chapter does NOT continue all the way through, and is just supposed to be a fun, weird introduction. Some might love it and some might hate it, just wanted to let you know that you won't have to put up with it past this first chapter if it makes this unreadable to you, so... hang in there.

 ☆ ☆ ☆

**Ladies, gentlemen, neither, both, and in-between, children of all ages, freaks of nature, welcome to the story of the greatest show this world has ever seen.**

  
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Behold John Murphy.

Murphy is twenty-three years, give or take, old. Look at him: blue eyes, brown hair, shaved close round the ears and jagged with spikes along the top of the head in a way that recalls a threatened porcupine. White skin, lacking the Mark, although marred by alley fights. Strong nose, bruised lips, thick brows, round ears. A simple black pant, lined up to the waist in deep pockets, circled with three forest green ropes at the hip, as is popular among young boys in the Collection. (Ah, for the children in the audience, yes, the Collection, the whole of all the city-states, nations, and kingdoms on this strange planet that you will come to know.)  Desert boots licked by splashes of tar black paint and chicken-scratched notes in ink. A tank the color of dull blue metal splits in two at the right shoulder and overlaps diagonally, with a darker, cobalt trim. It is not free from wear nor tear. Around his bicep coils a silver snake. Scales carved intricately into the metal, this accessory would give the appearance of masculinity, and of wealth, if worn by anybody else. He is an inhabitant of a planet circled by two pink suns, a small planet inside of a universe you've never visited, a planet they call Rubicundusol. This is a planet riddled with urban elemental magic and decimated in its history by the lost art of classic enchantments and ancient curses, inherited only by their exercitums, material hosts for heirloom magic. You've never seen anything like it. You've never seen anything like _him._

Look here! Watch Murphy, contemplate the creasing of the bright red pouch round his waist as you see only his legs growing from the inside of a waste bin like vines. Wonder what he's doing in there, listen to the way the trash crinkles and tears, brushes against the grime and gunk licking the sides of the bin. Do you hear it? The method? He is a scavenging vulture with hawk's eyes and dirty hands that move in a pattern, a learned sequence that surveys the insides of any container in a matter of moments. He would make an excellent doctor, don't you think? He would find that gall stone of yours in seconds and pluck it from you like a pearl from a clam with his very own hands. What he does... it isn't clean work. Not in any sense.

Murphy lifts his head from the bin with a discovery in hand and runs the dirt-black swirls of the pads of his fingers over the surface of some kind of artifact, a treasure that would look like any old pawned jewelry to the untrained eye and is undoubtedly the cause for the artifact's most unfortunate resting place. Murphy is careful, experienced and analytical... see, see there? Observe carefully the way his finger traces over that jagged mark in the jewelry's back, the deep, dark shape of a crack of lightning, a letter perhaps, a "W" or an "M". Remember that. Pay attention, now. Look at this find, an amulet, sitting in a sprawling golden frame crafted to recall the image of stars and dripping water, the golden glass stone in its center like an eye in a beautiful face. Captivating as part of a whole, rather unimpressive alone. Alas, a shallow break runs along the surface and blinds the eye. No matter.

Murphy stashes the amulet away in the pouch circling his waist and makes his merry way down a sloping street with an awkward cobblestone pattern in a kingdom that he has come to know very well. Yes, a kingdom! A Queen and her servants, cabbage vendors and cabbage thieves, bright-eyed old men and bushy-tailed children, thick-boned teenagers and crawling lepers-- all of the bells and whistles. You will have to forgive Murphy for the voids in his sight, sight that will delay your fullest understanding of this sprawling kingdom and all the Magic that it contains. For now, share his other more sensible senses and breathe in. Do you smell that, the grease? The savory, pungent smell of the jingling man's fryer? The scraggly-bearded cook behind the booth (a vendor's stand that doubles as a street act what with the frying of every customer's offering, from oatmeal cookie to old shoe) produces a pair of stinking tongs and waggles them in the air, shouting a chorus of "HOT FOOD! FRIED FOOD! GET YOUR HOT, FRIED FOOD!"s and "WILL FRY ANYTHING!"s as the bells hugging his wrists _ring'a'ling, ring'a'ling_. Watch as Murphy approaches the stand with a disarming grin, hands cupped under the face of an old, shattered watch, a watch that you may not have noticed him scavenging from a gutter only moments before, moments when you were distracted.

"Just for laughs?" he proposes, and the fryer looks thoughtfully at the offering for a moment. He shrugs his shoulders and begins to roll the watch in batter, hollering another series of phrases, this time thematic of "HOT FOOD! FRIED FOOD! FRYING A WATCH, COME AND WATCH!". We look into the fryer curiously as a small crowd of three or four street kids leans into the booth, shouldering our Murphy to the side, where he catches himself on the edge of a table of premade plates, heaped to the paper rims with dark meats drenched in thick sauces, generous spices and charred fruits. We return our focus to the fryer, as the vendor's spittle-ridden advertisements grow rarer, and a very much un-fried watch is poked around the waffled floor of a strainer. We lose interest with the crowd, and we turn to find Murphy a quarter of a mile down the cobblestone street, licking a kebab stick that once pierced grilled tomato and fried rat clean.

Behold John Murphy.

Murphy is the greatest conman this world has ever seen.

  
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Allow a scene to unfold.

"Great choice, beautiful specimen you have here," he says, and the woman smiles from ear to ear as she traces the edges of the necklace. The chipped pearl in the center is but a bead the color of warm coral, and the silver chain is junk metal lined with nickle. Her skin will be tattooed green by nightfall, but she keeps on with the airheaded smiling as she tries to clip it together beneath the flyaway hairs at the nape of her neck. Murphy, a notorious charmer, steps around his foldout table dug into the sand on a street corner, and catches the circle rounding off one half of the fake chain with the weak-holding lobster claw clasp on the other. His knuckles brush against the back of her neck as he drops his hands to her arms, turns her around. The girl's shoulders hike bashfully up to her ears, and past them, another surveyor catches Murphy's eye.

The man runs a palm along his jaw, catching dark stubble along the way. Murphy's eyes follow the sound's origins; he watches the man's hands as they peruse the table of worthless junk, advertised expertly as fantastical, extraordinary, ancient, magical. He squeezes a gold pear, smooths his thumb over a weighty stone the color of sand, bites down on a metal ring. Murphy is taken aback. It may be junk, but it's his junk. This stranger has no right groping it all.

"And it'll really grant me a wish?"

Murphy blinks. Right.

He tears his eyes away from the stranger with great difficulty, flicking his gaze past the girl even as he speaks, "You take that pearl up to the peak of Mt. Mendacium, wash it in a basin with water and ginger, and you wish for anything your pretty little head can dream up. Mage's honor."

She smiles. "Thanks."

He smiles, too. "Pleasure making magic with you."

As she turns a corner and Murphy allows the customer service smile to drop from his lips, the strange man twists an emerald marble off of a charm bracelet and narrows his eyes as it tinkles to the sand, rolling down a little dune like a lost planet. "How much'll you bet she wishes she never bought that necklace?"

The conman's mouth stretches into a weaselly grin. "These artifacts are the real deal, guy."

The other man watches the twitch of Murphy's fingers with careful eyes, surveys the clean, Markless skin of Murphy's neck.

"You aren't a Mage."

"It sells." There's the taste of a challenge in Murphy's mouth. "And you break it, you buy it," he adds, jerking his chin at the forgotten marble.

"Alright," the man says easily, smoothly, "and I'll bite." He dangles a honey-colored amulet cradled in what must be brass stars and teardrops before Murphy's eyes, and it swings like a hypnotist's pocket watch. "What's this dog's trick?"

Murphy rubs his palms together. This guy wants to bite? Murphy can give him something to bite.

"That old thing?" he says. He takes the amulet, holds it just out of the man's reach. A piece of cake. "This is the Golden Eye," he lies, delivers straight from the ass, "and it restores life."

The stranger inspects the broken amulet as if he might actually believe the conman, who would not only applaud himself but jump and click his heels together at the prospect of tricking a man who looks like he might just have a brain to trick. He shouldn't be so surprised. What challenge is too daunting for the greatest conman this world has ever seen? He'll sell this piece of garbage for all the haughty moron is worth, and he'll buy himself something pretty.

The man stares at the amulet a little while longer. Murphy whistles, rocks on his heels. The man seems to find something he likes in the glimmering stone and ostentatious frame. His dark eyes switch like darts to meet Murphy's curling face. "Say it's true. How did one of God's toys end up in the hands of a street peddler?"

"We prefer the term 'street entrepreneur'."

Charm. Finesse. Shock. Amaze.

Answer no questions.

Deceive.

Murphy smiles, like a shark after prey. The stranger smiles back.

_Bingo._

"Three pendocents," he places, tapping his fingertips on the metal box strapped with leather around his waist.

"Two and a half," the stranger barters.

"Three."

"Two and a half and I won't call the royal guard."

Murphy's lips quirk into a half-moon grin. "If I didn't know any better I'd think you were a street entrepreneur yourself."

The stranger extends a hand for Murphy to shake. The conman touches his fingers to knuckles that are no cleaner nor free from scars than his own. "Then you don't know much."

Murphy gets to preparing a little burlap pouch for the amulet as the man fumbles with his wallet and works at smoothing the creases from a pale red pendocent, and does his best to make small talk. God forbid the stranger asks any more questions about the amulet's lore.

"You from around here?"

The man seems to be ignoring him, poking and prodding different artifacts like he's at a petting zoo. Murphy shrugs. He didn't really want to know anyway.

The man scratches at his sideburn, disturbing a long coil of dark hair that he brushes back into place with his fingers. Freckles dot his knuckles and travel up the veins in the back of his hand like grapes on a vine.

Sure, maybe Murphy wants to know a little bit.

"I travel."

It's not really an answer. It doesn't really mean anything at all. Murphy gets it, and so he smiles, nice and big and wide, says something like: "Worldly guy. Tell me about the cities?" and holds out the bag with the broken amulet and the junk metal charm bracelet, tied neatly closed with a little stretch of twine.

The man accepts and opens the bag, takes the amulet out and cradles it in the palm of one big hand. He reaches behind him, into a plain sack that Murphy had taken note of when he first arrived. It was the kind of deep-reaching, triangular bag that made him a criminal, a collector, or a criminal collector. He retrieves a deerskin canteen and a cloth, and begins to clean the grime from the face of the amulet, right in front of him. Murphy wonders why the ritual couldn't have begun at home, but he's in no rush to be rid of the stranger, whose focused expression mesmerizes the mesmerizer. He's forgotten his question about the cities, gone unanswered still.

Murphy's gaze wanders after some time from the knit of the bearded man's brows and the downward curl of his lip to the amulet in his hands, which responds to a sheen of lukewarm canteen water by developing a heartbeat. _Bom bom, bom bom, bom bom_ : the amulet pulsates with a yellow light to a living rhythm, beating almost curiously, like a newborn child opening its eyes for the first time.

"Thanks," the stranger says.

"Wait," Murphy says.

 

I hope you were paying attention.

  
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Behold Bellamy Blake.

Bellamy is twenty-eight. Let's turn him around, let's have a look. Dark eyes, raven hair, loose curls that reach their split hands to the nape of the neck and then some. Scruff and scraggle along the jaw, the chin, up and over the mouth. Brown skin, lacking the Mark, charmed and simply tickled by the million rushing kisses of a million little freckles. It subtracts no threat from his formidable build, the way sparkling eyes might not soothe the callousness of a dictator. A soft curve to the nose, a handsome scar about the lips, wiry brows and jagged ears. A functional khaki cargo pant paired with a long-sleeved, coal black shirt that hugs the arms and leaves echoes of silver glitter about the collar, suggesting a less-than-gentlemanly rendezvous between the walls of a club or a night shift as a circus acrobat. Black military boots draped in small silver chains around the ankle. A creeping ear cuff, made of the same metal as any street kid's armband, swirls elegantly up the ridge of the ear and ends in the plump shape of a silver drop of water. This accessory would give the appearance of femininity, and of wealth, if worn by anybody else. You've never seen anyone like him.

You look 'ere, open your eyes. Watch as muscles tense at the introduction of an unfamiliar hand to a familiar forearm. What's that? The hand of the merchant, a loose grip, pale skin's crosshatches disrupted by paler yet scars. Look carefully on as the peddler shrinks in on himself, becoming smaller and smaller to dark eyes. Do you see the way he turns his brows, hunches his shoulders? Bellamy has seen beaten animals carry more confidence.

"Will you," the street boy requests, his brash demeanor having changed suddenly and completely, "help me pack up?"

Watch carefully as Bellamy considers the man, the task at hand. He has a show to get to. He accounts for the table dug into the sand, the flimsy cardboard sign with **"MAGIK ARTIFACKS!"** blasted onto its center in bold black ink. He counts up the _artifacks_ , the shiny hourglasses and crooked jewelry, the heaps and hunks of metal and junk scattered underneath the stand to replace the shlocky treasures on the surface, ladies in waiting. The peddler is chewing his lip, and Bellamy tracks the movement of his shifty gaze from the amulet in his hand to the space between Bellamy's own eyes.

"So soon?" Bellamy asks, nodding his head in the direction of the second rising sun, the rosy planet casting a noon blush over the Kingdom's sands and stones.

"I have other affairs lined up," he answers almost snottily, sparking a little nastiness in Bellamy's own rough and tumble, sharp tongue.

"Circus Ringmaster Anonymous?"

The merchant smiles, dropping his eyes for the first time. He fingers the handle of his brass megaphone and replies, "Meeting the Queen's ambassadors for tea, actually."

Bellamy hadn't noticed the absence of his breath, you see, but with the peddler's sharp eyes like metal hooks off of him, he exhales.

"Alright," Bellamy says through his sigh.

Don't miss the melted movements of his shoulders as the boy's gaze leaves him, the fluid way he sweeps charmed bangles and magic wands into a burlap sack the size of his torso, patched in brilliant firework colors of green, blue, and pink, stamped over and back with symbols of orange stars and black crosses.

"Nice sack," he commends.

The salesman quirks a brow before his eyes find the patchwork bag of artifacts, and sniffles in a way that suggests indifference. "Nothing special." Bellamy would beg to differ, but assumes he would be left begging.

The merchant circles him strangely as he collects the last of the items, slowly, avoiding stretching across the table and sidling up closer than our Bellamy is comfortable with. In one wide swipe, the merchant accidentally hooks the amulet's chain around his finger in the process of scooting a stack of cursed dishes into the sack. "Sorry," Bellamy apologizes, fishing the golden necklace from the bag. "I'll just grab that."

The peddler huffs, tracking the jewel with his eyes as it finds its way back into the customer's hand. Bellamy thinks the man must be awfully quick-tempered. He feels an urge to turn his nose up.

"Well," he says instead, holding up the amulet in a toasting gesture, "Thanks for the life."

Look here with your eyes and watch as our Bellamy turns to leave, scuffing a little crescent in the trodden-down sand.

"Wait," a voice calls, and Bellamy's path is blocked by the slouching salesman, toting his massive Santa Claus sack of artifacts with ease. He's strong. Too strong to ask what he asks next: "Will you walk me home?"

Bellamy narrows his eyes. He knows a good show when he sees one.

"Why would I?"

Forgive Bellamy for his suspicions. The man is shifty-eyed and works a street corner, and he stinks of deceit.

The merchant is turning pink in the ears, and switches his eyes to the ground. Watch carefully. "You aren't from around here. It's dangerous to walk alone," he says.

Bellamy tilts his head, scrutinizes the source of his suspicions, the silver snake coiled close around a prominent bicep, the shiny flesh of his war-torn knuckles, the mean glint of the salesman's eye. His stare flickers to the crimson castle where Castus, the Kingdom, dips into a dustbowl, tucked halfway into the ground and cradling the Queen of a dynasty that knows no crime. Bellamy doesn't like to be taken for a fool.

"You look tough enough," he appraises. "Try not to trip over any rats, you'll survive."

He makes to leave again. There's another hand on his arm. He looks into the man's eyes. They are pleading and a brilliant sky blue. They are the eyes of a man who cries. Bellamy is very attuned to color, to damage. The merchant is inches shorter, muscles weaker, and wears no Mark. He's airheaded, cocky, and could have been ditzy, in another life not lived fighting in the gutters. Bellamy can take him if he tries any funny business, and after all, it has been a while since he's seen the Kingdom.

Watch as our hero finds himself wandering even deeper into a city that would love to chew him up and spit him out.

Behold Bellamy Blake.

Bellamy is the greatest fugitive this world has ever seen.

  
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Look at this kingdom.

Isn't this the greatest kingdom you've ever seen?

Watch the colors dance in our Bellamy's eyes. He's moved to parting his lips in awe at the lights, paper lanterns in every color striking across overhead, between tall apartments painted deep purples and reds, and spiraling towers, reaching skyscrapers, rich in ancient brick and clay. Ribbons and flags color-picked from God's own eyes whip in the dusty wind. Street vendors crow out deals and steals on jars of jam and sprawling handsewn quilts. Children in rags jump through rattling hoops and roll marbles between the white stones under their sandy feet. A woman hangs her delicates out on the clothing line between a neighbor's window and her own with colorful pins. Single-bulb lights on strings dot the Kingdom and flicker golden, mirroring a rolling plain populated by a million brilliant lightning bugs. It's the kind of place that makes your neck hurt from all the looking up, all the owlish head-turning and sight-seeing. It smells like sugar and grease, it smells like home.

"Still beautiful," Bellamy murmurs.

The merchant turns, steps ahead, to look back at his escort. His bag of trinkets jingles loudly even in the noisy street. "Ah," he mutters. "Sure."

A frown blooms on Bellamy's lips. He thinks this guy wouldn't know a diamond from a rock. "You're not much of an aesthete, are you?"

The man shrugs, shifting the full-to-the-brim sack resting against his spine, looking every bit like the stork for cyclops' babies. "What's so great about inadequate lighting and kids putting rats on leashes?" He falls in line next to Bellamy, perhaps to hear him better. His eyes dart to the strap of Bellamy's knapsack and follow it to the drawstring, hanging loose. Bellamy's eyes flit against his will around the stranger's face, from the crease between his brows to the hard line of his bruised mouth. Living coin to coin, seeing nothing but ugliness around you...

"That's a cynical way to go through life."

The goofy tilt to the man's head straightens, the quirk of his lips is lost. "Then it's a good thing it isn't your life."

Watch carefully as the merchant begins to lag behind, scuffing his toes against the cobblestone falling away under his feet. Now, direct your eyes to our Bellamy's twisted face of guilt, discomfort. Think back to a time that you said something that perhaps you shouldn't have, a time that you put your hands in something that wasn't yours to touch. Do you have something in mind? Good.

A jerk, a rustle. Who's touching his bag? Oh God, he's being mugged! Bellamy casts a sharp look over his shoulder, fists curling.

Oh. It's only the merchant. Bellamy puffs out a relieved sigh.

You see, that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't gotten distracted again! Didn't you see the merchant going for our Bellamy's bag? You ought to watch closer.

"What're you doing?" Bellamy asks, tilting in a miniscule movement away from the man and adjusting his pack protectively.

"Your bag is open, I'll get it."

"Oh," Bellamy says, and shimmies the pack off of his shoulder. The salesman yanks his hand away as if it were caught inside, but Bellamy pays him no mind. "It's kind of hard to close, but thanks," he says with a half-smile of some thanks and some apology, and works on tightening the broken drawstring. When Bellamy meets the merchant's eyes, who has stopped walking, he is pink in the face and has his tongue in his cheek. He watches Bellamy's fingers carefully, tracking the pull of the drawstring and cradling his own hand. "Thanks," Bellamy says again for good measure, feeling that strange feeling again, that feeling that something is wrong.

As they resume walking, the man moves slower, deliberately, with a face that recalls solving a difficult equation or unraveling a mystery, a face that deserves a smoking pipe and a deerstalker cap. Bellamy wonders how deep into the city this man's home is, how much longer he can keep up the tourist charade. He wonders if this is another hunter, if he's being led to get put down in a field like a sick dog. A stiff, stuffy silence floats between the two men.

"Is this your only job?" is the nicest way he can think to ask if the man is a contract killer.

The merchant widens his eyes for an indiscernible moment, as if he were surprised that he was asked, but answers coolly, "Exotic dancer by night. Love the glitter." He jerks his chin at Bellamy's collar, and upon inspection, he is, in fact, dusted in silver glitter. It must have fallen off of Clarke's stars under the canopy tents.

"Funny," Bellamy praises, and grins a little, despite himself.

"And what do you do, Twinkle?" the merchant says, turning himself around and walking backwards to meet Bellamy's wandering eyes, which brighten brilliantly at the question.

"I'm, uh, well, a curator. For a touring show." His voice is not free from pride, even as he casts his gaze toward the skyline. "The Old Magic Oddities Show."

"You seem a little mild for a medicine show clown," the merchant decides, kicking a red ball gone astray back to a group of children tucked into an alley under a sandstone archway. A couple of the boys wave, as if the merchant is a familiar face. The man points a finger at one of the girls, who laughs sweetly in turn.

Bellamy makes a face. "Not a medicine show," he corrects. "Magic antiques."

The merchant stumbles, and stops walking. Bellamy nearly crashes into him, and if his feet were rubber they would have screeched. "Magic antiques?" the salesman parakeets.

Bellamy raises a brow. "Yeah. Polly want a cracker?" The other man is unperturbed by the bitchery during a moment that appears to be crucial, crucial to some kind of master plan for the merchant, some key to a much larger story.

"So you-- you what? Show artifacts?" he says, and holds up his sign with a question mark floating above his head.

"Yeah," Bellamy answers. _"Magik artifacks."_

He drops the sign to his side and begins chewing his lip, thoughtfully, in silence, painstakingly. Then, "You need a plug?"

"A plug," Bellamy deadpans.

The merchant holds out his patchwork sack and gives his fingers a little wiggle. "Sniffing out magic. It's kind of my specialty."

Bellamy would beg to differ, but again, he might be begging all day.

"You need new exhibits to rake in fresh crowds. I can make that happen. Mage's honor," he sells himself. "Free of charge, all I need is room and board. A little booze if you've got it." It's a final offer. It's a good offer. Tasteful, attractive, sudden.

It's a merchant's offer.

Watch carefully as Bellamy considers this. He doesn't trust the peddler, and his crew won't like it. Not one bit, no sir. But his bag of trinkets, and the amulet, oh, the amulet! That's all the proof Bellamy needs to know that the merchant is the real deal. He's imagining the ticket sales now... Oh, you haven't heard? The Old Magic Oddities Show is on its very last leg, and that leg alone is broken in two. New artifacts, new magic? This could change everything.

Yes, watch carefully, folks! Because this... this will change everything.

Bellamy extends a hand for the shaking. "Welcome to the troupe."

The merchant grins, a real lips-and-teeth-and-dimples-and-all grin. "Murphy."

"Bellamy."

Murphy's hand is warm, gritty with sand and calloused from neglect. A bulb flickers out overhead. Watch carefully as his eyes fall onto the black bag, again, and again.

"Pleasure making magic with you, Boss." 

  
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Behold John Murphy and Bellamy Blake.

Behold the greatest double act this world has ever seen.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey its jen again with another long ridiculous murphamy fic. i've been working on this for about a month, all the chapters have been written already and i'll be updating once a day so if you have any questions i actually have answers for once! this is completely unbeta'd and i refused to let any of my good nice friends see it so any and all mistakes are mine. anyhow, please talk to me! tell me what you think! i don't know if anyone reads murphamy-only fic anymore but i am so so so excited/terrified to share this cursed monstrous brainchild of mine and thank you so much for checking it out. i hope you like it. <3
> 
> p.s. the weird circus ringleader narration goes into hibernation after this chapter so you can actually read without the image of a mustachioed top hat guy screaming in your ear. for the most part.


	2. the svalinn shield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Svalinn Shield; the shield placed by the gods before the chariot of the sun to prevent it from setting its own world aflame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ☆ Copy and paste in new tab to set the mood: https://youtu.be/lmEpJh9u_0w ☆

 

"Hold on," the merchant says, stopping in his tracks. "We're going... to the Outside?"

Bellamy smiles to himself and carries on walking. In the distance he can see a disturbance in the yellow sand, a disturbance that every Mage hears fairytales about on the school playground, in the college library, between cubicles, in the breaths between funerals. In forty steps they will reach a steel trapdoor buried haphazardly in sand, with a handle in the shape of two mountain peaks, or a lightning bolt, or the jagged number '3', or whichever other false symbol one answers with at the interrogation table to blame the occult and not the mark of the Mage.

He remembers what it was like to leave for the first time, to take those first steps past the walls, into the Outside, where deserters resort to violence and murder to survive off of the grid, where magic is untamed, competitive, feral. To look a wilder danger in the face-- a wilder danger than the systematic persecution of the kingdom's baby-faced dictatorship, or the stripping and saddle-training by the hand of the commonwealth in the urban cities-- and still think, _freedom._

He gazes, melancholic, at the massive kingdom walls, two layers of red steel waving like ocean tides, pumped full of ferrumagic. The ceaseless motion makes scaling the walls impossible, and their towering height, the randomness of their pattern, makes flying over an endeavor of insanity. He casts a curious look over his shoulder as they finally reach the door in the sand, and finds the young merchant looking on, mesmerized by the hypnotic rise and fall of the barrier. It's the first Bellamy's seen of wonder in Murphy. He blinks hard a few times, and Bellamy hurries to clear his throat and crouch down, prying open the trapdoor to peer inside it's dark, gaping mouth.

"Ready?" he prompts, and Murphy bounces a couple of times on his heels, checking over his shoulders in a practiced, calculated way.

"Let's get the hell out of here."

Bellamy finds a grin on his face, unsure of when it got there. It grows despite himself as he watches the street kid slip down into the tunnels before Bellamy and plunder blindly into the dark, visibly buzzing with adrenaline. He follows, even as Murphy's confidence falters, and he slows as their path dips. According to the splitting echo of their gritty footsteps on sand changing to gravel, they've reached a fork in the tunnels, the choice between the East and West outskirts.

"Uh," Murphy starts in a voice far too loud for the confined, deeply dangerous space they're in, "the path less traveled by?"

Bellamy chuckles. "East, Frost." The rocks beneath the leader shift, and despite the near pitch blackness Bellamy can sense Murphy's raised eyebrow, the confusion. "The right one," Bellamy simplifies, gesturing pointlessly in the dark.

Their trek proceeds wordlessly until Murphy's low voice disturbs the silence again. "Old World poetry, huh?"

Bellamy shrugs, again, lacking reason. "Sure. More of a history guy by choice, though. Ancient Rome," he grunts out, stumbling over a slab of rock in the dark. "Greek mythology."

"Mythology," Murphy echoes, near breathing obnoxiously heavily from the hike through awkward, uneven terrain. "Real original."

Bellamy snorts. "You're kind of a smartass, aren't you?"

"Oh," the peddler hums, "you think I'm smart?"

The curator can do nothing but laugh, at a loss for words. Murphy stumbles when he twists around to look at the curator at the sound, and wobbles backwards. Bellamy catches his arm and pushes him upright in a way that feels natural, expected.

"I think you're something," he says after he recovers his breath and pace, amusement bubbling in his voice even still. They're walking much closer now, nearly side by side, and Bellamy can almost see the wide whites of his travelling companion's eyes. "I just don't know what yet."

If it hadn't been for the darkness, he would've sworn that Murphy smiled at that.

They traverse the rocky, black tunnel path for what could've been minutes but felt like hours, a trip that Bellamy still grew weary of even after increasing numbers of desperate trips into the kingdom's merchant town for artifacts. At some point, just when the gravel was becoming soft brown dirt and Murphy's newfound false sense of security has him walking heavier, he trips over a jagged tear in the ground and falls. Hard. "Shit!"

Bellamy kneels, unsurprised, to try and dust him off, but Murphy shoves his hands away and practically growls, grunting as he brushes the dirt from his pants and hands and rises into a stand again. Bellamy shifts past him and starts walking ahead, hoping that he knows the terrain a bit better and can avoid as many tragedies as Murphy has dealt with in the front. "Fucking fine," the merchant swears, followed by a snap and a soft crackling noise that grows progressively stronger.

A flame.

Bellamy stops where he stands, head twisted over his shoulder like a toucan and eyes wide. A strange, discombobulated cloud of fire licks up from the palm not gripping Murphy's sack of baubles.

"But you aren't a Mage," Bellamy says, stupidly.

Murphy huffs, looking sour in the firelight as he pushes past Bellamy in a way that is both rough and careful, holding the flame far from his companion's body. "No," he affirms. "I'm not."

After a moment of aghast stillness, the curator hurries to catch up to Murphy, who is walking harder, faster, more confidently in the light of his torch. "But, you're using pyromagic?"

Murphy is unresponsive for a moment that stretches on to feel like minutes, and then, he shrugs.

He just, shrugs.

Bellamy shakes his head, brows knitting. He doesn't have a lot of patience to spare for dark and mysterious enigmatic types. "You're unmarked. Why?"

The peddler sniffs in that nervous way Bellamy has noticed, flame flickering strangely, unsurely. "Not a Mage."

"But-"

"Just," Murphy snaps, "let it go."

Bellamy frowns, feeling a little defensive himself. "I'm sorry, I-"

"Can we just," he says breathily, through a deep, agonizing sigh that whistles through the tunnel. "Can we just pretend that I have a lantern? I'm just holding a lantern, alright? So we don't trip and bust our shit up on these rocks. You never saw me use magic, and we don't need to talk about it again, capiche?"

That deep-set feeling of wrongness, of something being off, settles like a hard stone in Bellamy's gut again. There's no such thing as an Unmarked using magic. The only unmarked Mages are the children of exiles, and rarely, deserters. But Murphy... Murphy was in the kingdom. He had a job there, a home. A life. A family, maybe. If the Unmarkeds could fly under the radar, that could change... everything. Bellamy has a million questions and is prepared to get answers for every last one of them, but for now; "Okay," he says. "Caposh."

A half-hour passes of walking, and Murphy grows more and more frustrated with every circle of sunlight they cross under. The circles, as Bellamy explained, are called keyholes, exit holes in the ground covered in thick netting disguised as earth.

"How the hell are people supposed to get out of here?" Murphy asks, sounding peevish still.

"The tunnels," Bellamy explains, eyes absently tracking the pinkness of Murphy's wrist, fading down over his arm, "are made for Mages to escape the kingdom before the Loyalty Ceremony." Murphy winces almost imperceptibly. "If you're not a Mage, it's a lot harder to get out through the keyholes. The people who dug these tunnels didn't want criminal Unmarkeds using them."

"So, how are we supposed to get out of here?"

Bellamy itches at his jaw, wondering if his speaking his mind would be counterproductive. The words leave him before he can finish the thought. "Well, we could leave whenever if you wanted to use your... _lantern,_ boost us up."

Murphy carries on walking, if not stomping. He closes his fist for a moment, his fingers squashing his flame and shrouding them in darkness before he unfurls them again and relights. His knuckles crack loudly in the silence. "Can't."

_You're using it right now!_   Bellamy thinks, and wants to scream it. "I have a friend waiting further down the line to pull us out, then," he says instead, and rather than agreeing, or making a smartass addition to Bellamy's plan, Murphy gasps.

It's small, almost silent, but the flame shrinks, and Murphy's fingers curl in a way that looks spastic and involuntary.

"Put it out," Bellamy urges, his commanding voice aborting Murphy's protests before they begin. The merchant's flame sizzles into nothingness, and Murphy pulls his hand into a cradle before Bellamy can see the damage.

"You can't control it," he states more than asks. He's cornered the young peddler, has Murphy pressed against the wall as he reaches for his hand. Murphy yanks it away, tucking it closer to his body. His face is red with embarrassment. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Yes it is!" Murphy barks, face twisting up like a kid on the brink of bursting into tears, and in this moment he looks nothing like the cocky, suave peddler Bellamy met in the city. He looks afraid.

Bellamy tries a gentler approach and holds his hand out expectantly, keeping a straight face where he might smile encouragingly at anyone else. Murphy seems like the type to take it as patronizing and run for the hills. After a moment of hesitation, Murphy rolls his eyes and huffs, hiking his bag up and slapping the back of his hand into Bellamy's unceremoniously. His palm is an angry red in the center, licking out toward the edges and between his fingers like a star. The pinkness of his fingertips and wrist is fading fast with the fire out. Bellamy traces the fresh burn with a featherlight touch, and Murphy winces, trying not to curl his hand back to his chest. "Slight burn," he appraises, ignoring the man's utterance of _"no shit."_ "One of the girls in the troupe is a Curi, just hang on 'til we get there."

"Are we ever _going_ to get there?" he grumbles as they prepare to set off again, and, like magic, sunlight spills in.

"Hey!" a voice calls, and Murphy looks up and down and all around for the source as if God is speaking to him. Bellamy turns his face down and backs away, practiced, as the netting over a keyhole above them is yanked to the side and leaves dirt, leaves, and twigs spilling down into the tunnel. Right onto the poor peddler's upturned face.

"Bleh," he spits, shaking his hair out like a dog. What with the bag in one hand and a first degree burn on the other, he blinks helplessly through the dirt clinging to his eyelashes with no way to clear his face. Bellamy, like any natural caretaker, takes it upon himself to swipe the debris from Murphy's cheeks, albeit with the quick, rough hand of a stranger. Murphy's reddening face goes unnoticed by the curator, who picks a twig from his spiny hair and flicks it to the floor.

"Is your streetwalker coming up too?" the feminine voice rings out into the tunnel, clearer now with the net gone, and Bellamy rolls his eyes up at her expectant face.

"He's just a friend," Bellamy says, raising a hand as a thick chain snakes it way down into the tunnel.

Murphy bristles, looking shaken still for a moment before he speaks. "That's what they all say." Bellamy gapes, a drop of the jaw that quickly turns into an astonished chuckle. The chain jerks up slightly in Bellamy's hand as the woman snickers.

"Streetwalker's funny," she applauds, and Murphy makes a snotty, proud kind of face in response. Bellamy rolls his eyes, giving up on fighting the harlot storyline.

"Just pull us up, Raven," he pleads reluctantly, and to his relief the chain starts to lift, and Bellamy wraps his hands tightly around it, pinching it between his feet for good measure. He spins as the chain does, and catches a glimpse of Murphy trying not to look fascinated by the tan hands threading a heavy chain, and a man, through a keyhole. Extreme sewing.

"I thought Monty was coming," Bellamy says as he emerges from the tunnel, blinking hard in the brilliant, pearlish light of the afternoon, both suns at their highest point. "No offense."

The Ferrumage quirks a brow and shakes him off the chain, leaving Bellamy tumbling into the grass and scowling when he sits up. "None taken," she says ironically, dropping the chain down to Murphy. "You were taking too long and Clarke needed his help. Rose trellis emergency."

Bellamy snorts at the mocking tone of Raven's voice, and drops his pack to the ground to massage his own sore shoulders while they wait for Murphy. After a couple of seconds of the chain wiggling around but no affirmative from the merchant, Bellamy and Raven lean toward the keyhole and peer down. Murphy, the poor thing, is trying fruitlessly to grab hold of the chain with the insides of his elbows, one hand singed and the other occupied by burlap.

"Drop the bag, Murphy," Bellamy instructs, although the salesman is reluctant to follow.

"Oh sure, let me just leave my livelihood in this earth rectum for fugitives to steal."

"It's junk," Bellamy teases, smirking the Ferru's way as Raven rolls her eyes as his antics.

"It's my junk!" his distant voice protests, and Raven shakes the chain impatiently.

"I can get it," she insists. "Bellamy's screwing with you."

There's a huff and a crash of trinkets and doohickeys, and Bellamy watches Murphy grab hold of the chain with his good hand, muscles rippling and face tucked close to the metal as he presses it against his body and tries to hang on.

"A little faster," Bellamy urges, and Raven obliges, threading the chain through the air from the distance with both hands aimed at it, some invisible energy, magic, pulsing from her palms to the metal and guiding it up and away from the keyhole.

Murphy swings as the chain moves with the horizon above ground and clings to it upside down like a sloth for a few moments longer, before crashing gracelessly to the earth with an _"Oof."_   He blinks furiously in the sharp daylight and as his eyes clear he seems to get a good first look at their underground operator. Raven is a tan-skinned Ferrumage, or metal manipulator, of twenty-two, wearing a deep brown high ponytail slick and swinging all the way to her waist. She's dressed in a fitted, ribbed burgundy top with brown pleather bracelets spanning from wrist to elbow on either forearm. A cacophony of jingling black necklaces does not distract from the gaudy boots pulled up over her black and muddy brown jockey leggings, knee-high, dark red combats dotted with flashy broach-like pins. A glinting industrial bar pierces through the uppermost part of her right ear, and there's one inky black tattoo crawling from the ends of her fingers up past the wrist on her right hand, a spiraling net scattered with the silhouettes of birds.

Raven leans over the keyhole and effortlessly plucks Murphy's patchwork garbage bag from the tunnel, and lays it gently next to Murphy where she would have flung it at Bellamy's face. She must like him, Bellamy thinks, suppressing a smile for reasons unbeknownst to him. Why would he care if Raven liked the stranger he'd hired just that morning? Murphy is part of the team now, and a team needs to get along to survive. Team. Team team team. It's all about the team.

"Oh, that's sweet, but Bellamy's a big boy," Raven says, frowning. "He can carry that himself." She snatches Bellamy's black bag from Murphy's hand, using her ferrumagic on the metal trinkets inside. When did he get ahold of that? Murphy makes a stricken face, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Bellamy catches the bag slung into his stomach with a huff and maneuvers it slowly onto his shoulders, watching Murphy out of the corner of his eye as the merchant pulls himself together and collects his own belongings into his good hand. They are as far as it gets from the sea, but the smell in the air is undeniably fishy.

"Okay boys, let's get moving," Raven directs, coiling her chain up in midair and hiking it onto her shoulder like a purse, finally looking a little worse for wear from the magic. "We've got a long walk ahead of us."

The Outside stretches on for miles, little forest microcosms peppered through green, greener than anything you've ever seen. It's plains and rolling hills, undisturbed by imperialist and industrialist causes, rife with danger and simmering with magic just underneath the surface.

"Of course we do," Murphy groans.

  
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Tents upon tents, and caravans, five of them. White and gold muslins cross over one another, creeping around the legs of the tall, navy canopied tents and releasing tufts of silver glitter with every burst of wind from the South. A radio plays something whimsical yet haunting, humming the thick, full-bodied sounds of heavyweight brass bells and the boney tinkle of a marimba. The campsite is bustling with color and sound, and two boys come tumbling, laughing, out of a pale green caravan, faded by sun and age. The valley is a kind of place that looks invincible, fairylike, and untouched by time.

"We're here," Raven announces needlessly, sweeping a hand over the encampment and lifting millions of glittery little paper stars from tent-tops and craft tables by their paper clips, twirling them in the air and letting them flutter back down like raindrops against the rich violet backdrop of the setting suns.

"Showoff," Bellamy grumbles, half-serious, half-alight with that childlike wonder which fills him each time he comes back to the valley after being away.

And Murphy? Murphy is picking at his cuticles.

Raven starts heading downhill, Bellamy in tow and the merchant lagging behind. "He's hard to impress, huh?" she says curiously, glancing back at him briefly. The newcomer gives a clueless half-grin in return.

Bellamy sighs, foregoing a verbal affirmative. The Ferru looks cheeky, all of a sudden, which could only mean that Bellamy isn't going to like what she says next.

"Weird that you managed to pick him up, then."

"You're fired," Bellamy retorts.

"I'll bet," she answers, moving closer reflexively, and he takes her elbow in hand as the downward slope becomes too steep for her to maintain her balance with her prosthetic, half-walks, half-carries her the rest of the way.

Bellamy drops a hand to her lower back at the bottom of the hill, nodding his thanks for the pick-up, which she returns before heading toward the grill nestled into the crescent moon of beaten-up caravans. Before he can think to seek her out, a head of blonde hair appears from the doorway of the rose-colored caravan, and its wearer smiles sweetly in greeting. "Find anything good?"

Bellamy scratches his neck. "I found something."

On queue, the merchant's footsteps come to a halt just behind Bellamy, and Clarke's smile falters, but doesn't fall. "Who's this?"

"Uh, Murphy," he says, fumbling stupidly with his bag as if he can't decide what to do with it, before choosing to set it gently on the ground and approach Clarke, offering his hand. She stares down at it suspiciously for a moment, before moving to oblige him and his awkward handshake. She frowns and pulls away before she reaches him, and Murphy recoils.

"No," Clarke blurts, looking confused, concerned, and apologetic all at once. "Sorry, I just-- can I see your hand?"

Murphy, like a child greeting an old, unfamiliar relative, glances over his shoulder with nervous eyes to look at Bellamy. Bellamy shrugs in response, as if to say, _"I don't know, just do it."_

He offers his hand again, and instead of shaking it Clarke turns it over, face up. She hisses through her teeth. "That doesn't look good. Can I fix it?"

Murphy blinks a couple of times, seemingly just remembering his singed palm. "Oh," he says in realization, "you're the Curi."

Clarke's lips spread into a smile again, and she tilts her head Bellamy's way as she ushers Murphy into the girls' caravan. "Aw," she coos, "Bellamy told you stories. Maybe he really does love us."

Bellamy rolls his eyes despite the grin betraying him, following them into the van and sliding the door closed behind them to keep the lightning bugs out. "Hardly," he teases, and to his surprise even Murphy snickers.

The Curi pats the day bed extending from the back wall of the caravan, decorated by a hideous lime green duvet and stacked high and far with faux fur pillows in deep purples and browning whites. Bellamy stumbles over the hoarder piles of floor pillows as he makes his way to the bed to sit by Murphy.

"How'd this happen?" Clarke asks in that voice that makes Bellamy want to answer even though the question isn't his to respond to. The peddler doesn't look perturbed for a second.

"I was at a fryer's stand this morning. Meant to lean on the table and put my hand on the edge of a hot plate," he lies, smoothly, effortlessly. It's a radial burn, recent, first-degree. It's the perfect story. Bellamy's brow twitches, but he looks at neither Murphy nor Clarke, staring hard at a chair on the opposite side of the van.

_"Mage's honor."_

_"You aren't a Mage." "It sells."_

_"Meeting the Queen's ambassadors for tea, actually."_

_"It's dangerous to walk alone."_

_"Exotic dancer by night."_

_"Not a Mage."_

_"The edge of a hot plate."_

Bellamy's new hire is a serial perjurer. Great.

The Curi kneels in front of them and closes her hand around Murphy's, who grimaces. Bellamy usually fights to tear his eyes away from a healing session, staring in wonderment at the brilliant blue glowing brighter and brighter in the Mage's veins, seeping out like white water onto the patient's skin. It moves in a deceivingly wet-looking cloud around the merchant's hand, looking for the wound's epicenter. Like a sponge, the burn soaks up the white light from the cloud. This time, however, Bellamy's eyes drift from the action and watch Murphy's hand, which shakes violently. The curator glances up imperceptibly and examines the brave face that Murphy wears, brows knitted and mouth in the hard line of a soldier's. His eyes are pricked with fear, though, and that's the giveaway.

"I think he's done," Bellamy urges, and Clarke makes a small noise of disagreement, intensely focused on repairing their new crewmate.

"Not yet."

Bellamy's false estimate must have disturbed Murphy's focus, who starts to jerk slightly under Clarke's touch like a little boy being prodded by the cold instruments of doctor. Again and again, Bellamy is reminded of a petulant, yet nervous child.

The blood dulls and settles into a normal pulse again, and Clarke rolls back on her haunches, sighing.

"Are you okay?" Murphy asks, as is customary for patients and even trained Mage doctors.

"Yeah," she answers, nodding minutely and waving her hand to ward off worry.

"Thanks," he says, looking concerned as a bead of sweat drips from her temple that she wipes quickly away, eyes closed as she recovers.

"I hope you're not always that clumsy if you're staying with us."

Bellamy, having forgotten entirely to tell anyone his reasoning for bringing a stranger to their encampment, feels warm at the unquestioning welcome of his crew so far.

"Nah," Murphy reassures her. "I'm usually a little... smoother."

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"He's really gonna stay with us? Like sleep here and everything?" the boy in the massive steampunk goggles inquires, circling Murphy like a museum exhibit. "Can we name him?"

Murphy gives a look of bewilderment from his seat by the unlit firepit, exchanging a glance with Raven as she fruitlessly attempts to light matches by the firepit and bites her tongue through a smile.

"Yes, yes, and no," Bellamy counts off, chewing a blade of grass, "unfortunately he's already been named."

"I can talk, you know," Murphy defends himself, face suspended in disbelief. "And the name's Murphy."

Jasper sits on the log across from him, dragging a stick through the dirt. _"Spike_ 's cooler," he grumbles. Murphy looks thoughtful, eyeing the other Unmarked with an expression that ultimately melts into bemusement.

"Actually," he says to everyone's incredulity, "I think that's kind of badass."

Jasper grins, brows high. "Really?"

Murphy shrugs. "Sure, if I can name you."

The Curi emerges from the caravan looking steadier on her feet than earlier, after her healing session with Murphy, a thick, pink blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Bellamy watches with amusement as she tries to sit on the log next to him without dirtying the corners of it under her boots.

"Uh, duh," Jasper agrees, looking incredibly too amused for the situation. It's strange, Bellamy thinks, how much he didn't realize about his crew until the newcomer arrived. Like how boring they must all be to free spirited, aberrant Jasper.

"Hm," Murphy hums, giving Jasper a once-over. "Goggles."

Jasper positively beams, lowering the thick goggles on his head and snapping them into position over his eyes. He salutes Murphy in a languid, informal way, still grinning like a fool and a drunkard. "Deal."

"Damn it!" a voice swears suddenly, shaking the smiles off of everyone's faces as they laze around on the logs. "All of our matches are always wet. Who keeps leaving these outside?" Raven complains, slamming the matchbox down into the damp soil, wet from lingering morning dew. "There's no point in putting a tarp over the firewood if we can't light it, people," she nags, and even Clarke hangs her head to roll her eyes in private.

"Fat chance, having all of these Mages and not one of us is a Pyro," she grumbles, brushing her hands off with finality and sitting back in the dirt.

Bellamy spares a glance at Murphy, who's wrapped his arms around his knees and is watching the ground, pretending he isn't listening.

A real performer, he is.

"I'll go get Harper and Monty," Jasper says helpfully, and takes off in that lanky, dizzying way of his to the farm trailer.

"Speaking of Monty--" Bellamy begins, but is discouraged by Clarke smacking his elbow.

"Don't get her started," she begs, but it's too late. Raven's crawled onto the log across from them and bangs her head against the arms crossed over her knees.

"No, he hasn't figured out his optimal soil ratios for his supertomatoes, and if we weren't starving I would leave him to his dorky lab experiments but right now, Bellamy? Right now I want my tomatoes."

"I know," Bellamy starts.

"I want my tomatoes, Bellamy."

"I know. You'll get your tomatoes, he just--" Bellamy sighs. "Until he gets his soil right we have plenty of Monty's superbeans, we've got cans, and there's some bread left too. We'll go into town after the next show for grocery shopping, promise." She looks at him skeptically, a crooked little frown on her face. "We can even see a kinetipicture at the theater. We'll make a day out of it."

"You keep saying that," Jasper huffs from behind him, Monty and company in tow.

Bellamy stays silent as a momentary wave of hopelessness overcomes him, the drowning feeling of disappointing them, of neglecting his family. Everyone has a seat around the fire, oblivious to his turmoil and watching Harper's hair stand up on end as she extends her hand toward the firewood. "Hey, she looks like Spike!" Jasper crows, glancing quickly with an open-mouthed smile at Murphy, who grins languidly through the sickly pallor of his face. The blue static dances in anticipation around Harper's fingers and is freed in a sharp, loud whip of pale electric heat that prompts the firewood to burst into flames almost instantaneously. Upon searching for him, Bellamy finds that the young peddler has conveniently gotten up from his seat at some point to root aimlessly around in his bag near the caravans. He decides, against his better judgement, to follow, as the rest of the crew is distracted by applauding Harper for not burning the camp down, and setting up the side posts and crossbar.

"Hey," he says, pocketing his hands as Murphy finally drops the bag.

"Weird, it's not in there," Murphy mumbles of a nonexistent object, plastering a fake look of confusion onto his face.

"What's not in there?"

"What's up?" he says quickly, as if he hadn't heard the question, straightening himself and avoiding Bellamy's stare. He looks absently over at the rest of the group as Jasper takes off with the campfire pot and bangs his cooking fork against it like a drum, but his eyes are glazed over like he's thinking.

Bellamy had seen him, the way he kept his eyes averted from Raven's star show, the way his face twisted with fear while Clarke soothed her magic into his body, the way he vanished the moment Harper's hands lit up.

Mages are the posterchildren for crime, the victims of a universally adopted stereotype in the wake of their unique, genetic strengths. No one likes to believe that their family, their friends, their neighbors could be responsible for committing the tragedies that wound the world with their bare hands. Cognitive dissonance demands a scapegoat to protect its hosts, and so the onslaught of propaganda begins at birth. Perhaps, Bellamy muses, even a Mage could be convinced to fear their own kind.

The curator sighs. "Nothing," he answers.

Murphy knows that he knows, and Bellamy knows that Murphy knows that he knows.

"Come eat," Bellamy says instead.

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"Can I have the last serving?" Jasper begs, shaking his hands in prayer. Bellamy nods when no one else protests, and peeks into the pot.

"That's hardly a serving," Bellamy notices, and pours a little bit of his bowl back into the whole of it. Jasper catches Bellamy by the shirt collar and pecks him on the lips in gratitude as the others protest, shouting at Bellamy to eat. "Not hungry," Bellamy reassures them, routinely, laughing as Jasper hums a jovial little ditty while ladling another soupy spoonful of superbeans into his bowl, a brown ceramic pot with a bright green handle.

"He's gonna stink up the bathroom hole," Monty laments, and a bean dribbles over Clarke's lips as she _'pfft'_ s out a surprised laugh.

"You 'da one who makes ah 'da bees," Jasper argues in place of _"You're the one who makes all of the beans,"_ pointing his spoon at Monty accusingly.

"He's about to make some beans alright," Raven adds, and another slurp of grayish-brown juice spurts from Clarke's mouth as she stifles her laughter, leaving her mortified as the group's taunts turn on her.

Bellamy spares another look at the newcomer, who is too focused on scarfing down his own serving like it's the first meal he's ever had to notice the antics of the troupe.

"Hungry?" Bellamy asks, and Murphy scowls, slowing down, albeit reluctantly.

"Missed breakfast," he says, and the other man estimates that it's probably the understatement of the year. The kid was selling trinkets on a foldout table in the street and dropped everything he owned for room and board with a stranger.

"Here," Bellamy says, and pours the last of his bowl into Murphy's.

"Wait," Murphy protests, glaring down into his food. "What's the catch?"

What's the catch? Over a spoonful of _beans?_   Bellamy feels some kind of misplaced hatred knocking around in his gut. What kind of dystopia is the Queen running out there?

"No catch," Bellamy says in substitute of shaking him by the shoulders.

"You just gave some to Goggles," Murphy adds with his eyes narrowed, crease deepening between thick brows. "Don't you eat?"

"Not hungry," Bellamy shrugs.

The grateful little smile that he gets in return, so small on Murphy's usually nasty expression that he nearly misses it, is worth all the beans he's got.

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Murphy finishes his meal feeling warm and on the brink of overwhelmed. A fire, food in his stomach, and the most company he's had in years if not ever. In fact, his face hurts from all the smiling, a foreign, disturbing feeling, like pain that he isn't meant to be troubled by. Pain that he should welcome.

Raven's enraged to the point of slapping Jasper, repeatedly, on the head, vengeful and covered in bean slime as the collateral damage in Jasper and the farmer kid's spoon fight. Murphy watches on in contentment, secretly rooting for the Ferru, when a rumbling sound to his left grabs his attention.

Bellamy's stomach growls.

The blonde healer at his side looks at him with wide eyes that narrow slightly, and she whispers something to him in a harsh, hurried tone. He murmurs back lowly until they're fighting, all shushing and heads bowed, very much in the way that parents on the edge of a divorce might argue at the dinner table with their children across from them.

"Murphy," Bellamy says suddenly. The addressed turns his head sharply in order to appear as if he weren't eavesdropping, raising his brows expectantly. "You must be tired, why don't I show you where you can sleep?"

"Uh," he says, intelligently. "Can I take a piss first?"

Bellamy's exhausted expression morphs into something of bemusement. "You want to raise your hand and ask again?"

"Hardy har," Murphy sneers, mentally slapping himself as he scoots his bowl and spoon into the pile collecting by the fire and limps off on sore legs like a broken dog to the area behind the caravans, for lack of a better location. Boss Man hadn't exactly given him the grand tour.

Guilt wrings out his gut like a wet towel even as he relieves himself. He can't help but wonder how often the curator gives up meals, goes to bed hungry. How often all of them try to silence their stomachs while sleeping in the same room, how hard it must be to perform magic under the threat of starvation. And hasn't he demanded enough from them? Making Raven lift him, making Clarke heal him, making the Fulguri girl light the fire when he could have done it himself?

He tries to clear it from his mind and focus on the plan, the original goal. He's getting distracted. Get the amulet back, get rich or die trying.

_Pull a fast one on the people giving him food and shelter._

He shakes his head. Old World Christ, he can't think like that. It was his amulet to begin with. It won't make a difference if he takes back something they didn't have in the first place. Right?

"Who cares?!" he blurts, followed by a rattling shake of his head and a scan of the perimeter. A shadow moves at the edge of the forest above the valley, but Murphy's talking to himself and thinking about morality, so his mind clearly can't be trusted in this descent into madness.

Bellamy's waiting in front of the caravan with mint green siding when Murphy turns the corner, and greets him with a little wave and a sweeping gesture as he slides the door open and pulls the chain to a dim, yellow light behind a cider orange lampshade. Murphy steps gingerly inside and can't help the soft, impressed noise he makes while taking it all in. It's a lot like the girls' caravan, although made up almost entirely of vibrant blues and greens with black accents, a more uniform color scheme. He runs his fingers absently along the black tassels dangling from the rim of the lamp as he maps out the little caravan's layout, a platform bed extending from the back wall, black sheets and two thin, hard-looking blue pillows. The floor is a mess, palette beds seemingly unmade from the night before, quilts stacked upon quilts made of cotton and some, strangely, denim. There's a stuffed deer toppled over between two black pillows, looking a little more plush than those on the bed.

"It's not much, but it's, you know," Bellamy mumbles. "It's home."

Murphy scratches at his arm, fighting the urge to look at Bellamy, but isn't sure where to look otherwise. "It's... nice."

If he'd turn around, Murphy would see a pair of eyebrows raised to the other man's hairline.

"Uh, yeah," he mutters, disbelieving, and moves to rifle around in a black cotton sack by the bed. Bellamy fishes out a wrinkled white tee and a traditional pair of cheap red sweats, spacious until the knees and tightening at the ankles, fabric overlapping down from the top of thigh to each ankle in layered, triangular cuts of cotton. "I don't have any clean socks, but it gets hot in here anyway," he says in the way of an apology, and makes Murphy snort when he adds, "I hope your underwear's clean, because we're kind of tight around here on that too. We'll go shopping for you after the next show, promise."

Murphy thinks about Jasper's earlier grievance by the firepit, _"You keep saying that,"_ and wonders if it applies to him too. How long is he going to have to wear these underwear? They don't have washing stations out here.

He fails to remind himself of his original estimated stay.

He passes the clothes over to Murphy and then looks around the caravan momentarily, eyes searching, before they fall on the bed and he shrugs. "And you can just sleep here."

Murphy is exhausted from the tunnel trek and overwhelmed from dinner, and for these reasons does not consider who might normally sleep in the bed. Instead, he nods, and sits himself on the edge of it. Bellamy returns the gesture, and slips out of the caravan without much further ado. The door slides noisily shut in a way that invokes the picture of dark rust being scraped from metal, and clicks closed behind him.

"Thanks," Murphy says to no one.

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"How long is he staying?" Clarke asks, no opinion one way or the other evident in her tone.

Bellamy scratches his beard, shrugging. "As long as he works with us," he answers. "He's part of our crew. For now."

Monty pauses where he's washing the inside of the campfire pot. "I don't like him."

"I think he's funny," Jasper debates, pouting.

"This isn't a vote," Bellamy interrupts.

Harper scrunches her nose up, looking aggrieved. "You didn't think to consult us about just... adopting a street vendor?"

"He's a scavenger," Bellamy argues. "And a good one, too. He found this." He fishes the amulet out of his bag, swinging it from its elaborate chain.

"No shit," Raven murmurs, reaching out for it. Bellamy gives it up, and she runs through some mental checklist of hers as the others crowd around the antique like gulls to a shiny thing. "What is it?"

"He called it "The Golden Eye," supposedly restores life."

"Protection charm," Harper murmurs, reverent.

"And we trust Murphy?" Clarke asks sharply, prompting the rest of them to cast their gazes from the necklace to Bellamy. His palms sweat under the lamplight, the interrogation voices.

"No," he admits. "Not to be an asset. He doesn't know what his artifacts are and I'm guessing most of what he'll find will be useless, but he gets lucky here and there and that's better than me searching on my own. This," he starts, for example, pointing at the amulet in Raven's cupped hands, "is so much more than he thinks it is. I kind of lowballed him for it."

"Mean," Harper decides, tracing the golden roses in the amulet's frame. Bellamy frowns.

"I guess," he relents. "But we need business, and if he can find something good it might save us. Bringing the show into a Mage-breaking city is our last resort. Our worst case scenario. Yeah?"

There's a murmur of concurrence. Nobody wants their magic stripped from them just so they can start touring the urban cities to survive.

"That's why we need him."

"Yeah," Raven says, disturbing the agreeable silence, "not just 'cause you think he's cute."

  
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It's late, after the nightly washing of dishes and fighting to use the hole. The boys climb as quietly as they can into the caravan, shedding their day clothes, Monty tugging on thin pajamas and collapsing on the floor pallet, Bellamy fishing out his black sweatpants with the blue accents, an Old World graphic tee reading "ABBA", whatever that means, in sharp black and white text. Jasper does not shy away from his strict underpants-only rule despite their guest.

Bellamy inches carefully onto the side of the bed unoccupied by a long-since-unconscious Murphy, curled up sideways on the left, on top of the blankets and in Bellamy's clothes, and holds his breath, too, testing how heavy of a sleeper he is. Murphy doesn't stir terribly, only shifting and grumbling a bit, so Bellamy closes his eyes and welcomes the brief respite from life and the day's chaos that sleep brings. The soft line of Murphy's arm keeps him from falling fast, and it isn't helped when the peddler shifts closer to Bellamy's warmth in the dark. He listens to the uncharacteristically sweet, contented sigh that slips free from Murphy after he's touching Bellamy's side in eighteen places and edging him off of the bed. Once the contact becomes a familiar comfort rather than an uncomfortable breach of space, the curator begins to drift off, peacefully over the surface of an empty black sea.

"Huh," Jasper's lowered voice hums in the dark just before Bellamy's conscious mind slips away completely, the boy hovering directly over them. "Raven was right. He _is_ kind of cute."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you thank you thank you for reading as always and queue me begging for validating kudos or attention and discussion in the comments. things start progressively getting nastier and more fucked up after this chapter so. bask in the cute stuff while you still can
> 
> my twitter is @jxnathanmurphy if u want to see how stupid i am, love u


	3. the orna of tethra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Orna of Tethra; the sword of Tethra of the Formorians, which, when unsheathed, recounts all of the deeds it has done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ☆ Copy and paste in new tab to set the mood: https://youtu.be/KBWBWaXHZb8 ☆

Murphy's heart has been broken many times.

 

This is what keeps him from wailing, screaming, pounding on the floor while the curator locks his objective away in a steel floor-safe with two sturdy, shiny locks.

"You aren't gonna put it in the show?" Murphy questions, on the edge of some kind of panic, trying to conceal the quaking frustration in his voice. What was all this for if he's only going to lock it away? Bellamy glides past him to leave the storage van they're in, stacked high with boxes and broken, dusty, unpolished artifacts, the decidedly unworthy ones, the Island of Misfit Toys.

"We need a display case for it first," Bellamy says, "Raven's working on it. Should be done by tomorrow night."

Murphy ducks out of the van and slides the wide door shut, moving out of the way so Bellamy can lock it closed again. "Are you gonna put a lock on the case?" he asks, aiming for the innocent spirit of inquiry and following the other man blindly as they meander toward the girls' caravan.

Bellamy throws a look over his shoulder, a look that suggests he thinks Murphy's being strange. "When did you get so inquisitive, detective?"

"Just-" Murphy scratches the back of his neck "-wouldn't want someone to take it."

"The only people who care enough to steal artifacts live in Castus, not out here." And only the curator could say such a curious thing so absently, knocking twice and then sliding the door to the pink-walled caravan open slowly. "Clarke?"

It's Murphy's third day on the crew, yesterday's spent lurking around the encampment in Bellamy's clothes, suffering Raven's endless teasing on the subject of being a streetwalker for a very lonely curator, glittering paper stars and eating more superbeans.

His eyes wander as Bellamy steps inside and has some sort of incredibly amusing conversation with the healer, and he thinks about those words which don't make sense to him. Who wouldn't try stealing magic artifacts? What kind of Mage wouldn't want new tricks, free power? And the _money,_ Murphy muses, feeling dizzy over it. The money sounds good too.

"For you," the Curi says, and shoves a pile of something painfully bright into Murphy's chest. He unfolds the fabric and feels his face twist at what he finds. The complaint in his mouth nearly escapes, but he stuffs it down and looks up from the outfit in his arms to respond with shock for a second time as Bellamy, Clarke, and the blonde Fulguri, Harper, are all in varying states of undress, Bellamy having stripped down to his briefs already. Murphy's eyes find themselves stuck on the muscles of the other man's abdomen despite the chaos and he swallows, tilting his head toward the ceiling to avoid ogling any other stranger's naked body. It's been a while. He's a growing boy. Sue him.

"Uh," he announces to the top of the caravan, "I appreciate the invitation, but I just met you guys." He's only half-kidding. The weight in his arms feels lighter and suddenly he's plunged into darkness as a piece of fabric is tugged forcibly over his head. When he emerges, he smooths his flattened hair back so his vision is no longer impaired. Bellamy's amused little smile is quirked sideways when Murphy opens his eyes again, and he feels his face flash red like an alarm.

"The life of nomads," the Fulguri says, adjusting the waistband of her vibrant, cobalt blue pants. "We forget how city people are obsessed with privacy."

"Ashamed of their bodies," Clarke adds, tying a Bolo tie around her neck before addressing the fact that her blouse has been missing long enough to warrant a milk carton campaign.

Bellamy smiles apologetically, unfolding Murphy's new pants and holding them out to him. "Sorry," he says quietly enough that the girls would have to strain to hear. "Not a lot of room to worry about modesty around here. We're getting into costume. You can change somewhere else if you want."

It isn't a challenge, but Murphy glances at the girls getting into their outfits and feels the need to impress Bellamy, to be one of them. And what does he care, anyway? Like Clarke said, he isn't ashamed of his body. He looks Bellamy in the eye and drops his pants.

The curator barks out a surprised laugh, eyes sweeping down Murphy's naked legs and up again before he claps his hand against the merchant's shoulder and gets back to dressing himself. Murphy is left feeling warm in the face and an awful lot like he ought to sit down.

His new ensemble is a dark violet pair of harem pants that billow out at the thigh and tighten again at the ankle, patterned with tiny white suns, and the top is a loose, cropped muscle shirt the color of sand. For accessorizing purposes, he has been offered a silver chain and little silver earrings, small X's for either ear.

"Raven noticed you had your ears pierced, she thought you'd like those," Clarke says, making a lot of racket with a set of bangles as she dresses by the bed. Murphy has to stop tying his boots back on, feeling his palms grow a little clammy as he reaches for the grimy old studs in his ears. When's the last time anyone noticed anything about him, let alone gave him a gift just because?

"Our old outfits weren't so bad. How much did these cut into the budget?" Harper says, followed by closing her lips in a hard line as she works on braiding the hair closest to her face. Murphy glances up without moving his head, watching discreetly as Clarke rolls her eyes up toward the ceiling and closes them.

"Just traded some things. Dropped three unucents on something nice for Jasper."

"What did you trade?"

"Nothing," Clarke says in a clipped tone that still sounds gentle in her voice but would be the equivalent of snapping in anyone else's.

Harper frowns, reaching over to a little shelf on the wall to grab a rubber band for tying off her braid. Clarke avoids her, sitting on the edge of the bed to tug on a pair of shiny yellow flats. "Don't give away any more of your stuff, we can make do," the Fuguri says more gently this time, seeking the healer's eyes. Clarke moves backward on the bed without answering, and Harper, in habitual understanding, begins to wordlessly braid her hair into something that looks complicated to Murphy but is finished within minutes, a fishtail braid pinned here and there with little golden spheres.

Bellamy finishes combing his curls in a mirror on the wall and waves Murphy over, who stops pretending to fiddle with his shoes for lack of something better to do and obeys. Bellamy maneuvers him by the shoulders to stand before the mirror, and Murphy, getting the message, reaches for the comb to try and make something decent out of the dead tarantula on his head. Bellamy, however, has other plans, and snatches the tool from Murphy's unsuspecting hand. "Let's amp it up a little," he suggests as the girls bicker about the knot in Harper's head-tie. "For the show." Murphy shrugs in easy agreement, and Bellamy gets to work with gels, sprays, fingers and combs, doing the impossible to Murphy's more impossible appearance.

The feeling of hands in his hair, on his scalp and around his ears nearly lulls him to sleep. He fights the urge to purr on several occasions. His eyes, at some point, fall closed. When all is said and done, Bellamy laughs out loud and rattles Murphy by the shoulder to grab his attention. He blinks back to the present and the man looking at him in the mirror is someone who would turn heads on the street. The merchant's hair looks to be its thickest in the center of the top of Murphy's head, sticking straight up like he's a victim of an electrocution.

Bellamy allows him to stare a minute longer as he drops the silver chain over Murphy's head, gently breaks his old ear studs apart, wipes the crud from his long-unremoved piercings with a cloth, and replaces them with Raven's crosses. Murphy's face burns red throughout it all. He hasn't been styled and powdered like this before, hasn't been the center of attention like this in a very long time.

The healer rifles through her shelf and hands something small to Bellamy, a pencil. The curator twirls Murphy around to face him and plants a hand on the side of his face, thumb pushing into the skin between his chin and throat to hold him steady. "Don't blink," he commands, and Murphy's eyes water as Bellamy drags upturned rainbows across his lower lashlines. After a moment of watching Murphy wipe his involuntary tears in the mirror and smudge the dark eyeliner all around, Bellamy plucks the viper armband from Murphy's pile of old clothes and slides it carefully up to Murphy's bicep. Bellamy's grip on his wrist to hold his arm straight, the cool metal gliding up his skin, makes Murphy shiver. The merchant can do nothing but stare at his reflection, watching his face flicker between various shades of pink. In all these colors, all this makeup and jewelry, hair taller than the royal donjon, he looks ridiculous. He looks...

"Awesome," the Fulguri appraises from behind them, and Clarke smiles broadly at him in her reflection with an idea in her eyes, having apparently decided something grand. Murphy is flushed under the attention, fighting the need to twiddle his fingers and touch his toes together like a little kid. He crosses his arms instead, trying to keep his chin high and expression bored.

"He's the character we needed," she says at last, prompting the three of them to turn and look to her. "He's our walker."

Murphy feels sweat bead at his temples as all eyes land on him. Then, Bellamy grins.

"I'd love to see him try."

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"Ladies and gentlemen," Raven calls from the window of the very first caravan in their half-moon procession, the one stuffed fatter than a tick with canopy tents folded up in waiting. "It's showtime!"

In troupe language, this means "Go." The rumble of all of the vehicles blasts through the empty valley as they start their engines, Raven leading the pack in the tent van, and Monty pulling up the rear with the farm on wheels. Murphy rides shotgun in the truck with Bellamy, pulling one of the caravans behind them.

"We're coming back, right?" Murphy says, looking past Bellamy out at the barren valley which looks so much smaller without them, no fire blazing, no music tinkling, no Mages laughing and playing.

Bellamy glances over at his passenger. "I'd say as a traveling show rule of thumb to never get too attached to any place," he says in the airy voice of a poet reincarnate, and then looks almost mournfully out at the valley. "But somehow we always end up back here."

The merchant watches the valley fall away under their tires, eyes following a silver star caught on a playful breeze.

As the truck rumbles up and out of the grassy bowl, Murphy's eyes wander from the window to the freckled skin pulled taut over a set of knuckles as Bellamy grips the steering wheel and lays on the gas. He's dressed in a black bishop-sleeved shirt and the same harem pants as Murphy, however dull green and decorated with black moons to rival Murphy's suns. A loose, thin leather belt painted silver and glittering holds the loose trousers up to his waist, and he wears a white crystal on a string around his neck. He's tucked the tight ankles of his pants haphazardly into his military boots, his silver ear cuff replaced by a black contraption of drooping chains and strings that swing when he moves his head to see what all the staring is about.

"What?" the driver asks, half-discomfort, half-absolutely knowing what and being cocksure about it too. Oh, the eternal plight of a handsome man pretending to be humble. Murphy turns his eyes toward the sandy road the troupe is following past the windshield.

"Nothing," he says. "You wear a lot of jewelry."

Bellamy frowns, checking that Monty is following in the rearview mirror. "So do you," he says, almost like a question. If Murphy didn't know any better he'd think he had offended him.

"That's different," he says. "You're all simple living, dirt tunnels and canned beans and shit."

The curator, although looking dumbfounded still, takes a less defensive stance than he had held moments earlier. "You mean I'm poor and should look it."

"I mean you aren't-- what do they call it? Mat- matelialeristic," Murphy elaborates, leaning his cheek against his hand, elbow against the window.

"Materialistic," Bellamy corrects, and pushes a bit of air through his lips. "And you are, Mister Room and Board?"

"It's about possessions," the merchant argues. "I collect possessions, I sell possessions, I have possessions." His body unfurls like a piece of paper loose from a palm and he pushes toward the dogbox, watching the driver with his pupils tucked into the corners of his eyes.

"You didn't bring anything but a bag of junk and the clothes on your back, and your ensemble wasn't anything to whistle at," Bellamy rebukes, blunt and brows high, and Murphy would be hurt if his two shits could be lent to the world of fashion.

"Maybe you don't need to own anything to be materialistic. You just need to want nice things."

Bellamy gazes thoughtfully out at the road ahead of them. "Do you want nice things?"

"Everyone does."

The curator looks momentarily over at Murphy, something sorry coming over his expression like a gray cloud. "I can't promise you'll get a lot of nice things if you stay with us."

Murphy shrugs, pulling his gaze away painstakingly and sagging over to the right of his seat, cheek melting against the truck's hot window. "I'm sure I can get my hands on something."

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Murphy, moments ago folded over like a ragdoll behind his seatbelt and buried in sugarplum dreams, jolts awake. The truck has rolled over a dune and braked abruptly, and the belt bites into the merchant's neck.

"Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty," Bellamy's commands, unbuckling him and reaching across to force the passenger's side door open. Murphy blinks and groans, slipping groggily from the raised seat of the truck onto treacherous ground as Bellamy makes his way over to Raven's truck.

They're downhill from a road, in a valley of sorts again, and the red sand shifts underneath his boots. It's not the packed, gritty kind of sand that collects in creases you didn't know you had, the kind of sand from the kingdom. This sand is free from tread and tossed by wind into soft piles, and making his way over to Raven's truck to reunite with Bellamy without looking stupid quickly reveals itself as being Mission Impossible.

The raven-haired man tugs the truck's door open as Murphy toddles his way over with all the grace of a fawn on ice, and says something unintelligible, silenced by the rumbling of the farm caravan as Monty joins the gathering at last. Raven is shouting, pointing and waving her hand like a director, and although Murphy is sure that they can't hear a word she says, the troupe bursts into motion like a flock of birds or military cadets, all scattering at once in a million directions.

She then takes Bellamy by the shoulders as he makes himself into a crutch, holding her by her underarms and lowering her easily to the ground. They converse casually through the movement as if it's a regular happening, but despite this Murphy thinks that the curator escorts her like one might care for a woman in a sprawling dress, taking her elbow on steep hills and short jumps from the insides of trucks to soft ground. Maybe Bellamy's an old-fashioned gentleman. Maybe they're an item. Murphy averts his gaze with the realization, feeling suddenly as if he's intruding on a private moment between lovers.

"Anything for me, Boss?" the merchant asks as he enters their radius, but is no longer sure whether he should be addressing Bellamy or Raven for orders. He gets his answer when the Ferru jerks her thumb at the farmer and the healer wedging the bases of rose trellises into the sand.

"You're on decorations with Monty and Clarke, they'll tell you what to do."

He doesn't ache terribly to be on prom committee with the crew sweethearts, but Murphy looks over his shoulder, watches the Fulguri and the Unmarked drag folding tables from the storage van and hoist them in the air over to the canopy tents that they've pitched like head porters, and decides that decorating looks far less physically exerting.

"Ten-four," he obeys, ambling their way as he sinks more than steps. Clarke does not greet him with her usual smile, and instead shoves a hamper full of white curtains into his chest.

"String these up," she orders, sweat pooling on her upper lip already. If he wanted to debate her commands or make further inquiries he would be at a loss, for she darts off like a hummingbird and disappears inside the belly of the storage van to drag another trellis out like a professional wrestler.

Murphy sets into motion hefting the basket onto his still-aching shoulder and digging a stepstool into the sand at the corner of the first tent, while the others weave under and around him like a million ants, moving at the speed of sound, a thousand times faster than him. After his fifth try of pinning the muslin to the tent's canvas overhang, standing back with his hands raised and watching it slump and flutter to the ground again, he feels the beginnings of inadequacy's headache brainchild pounding at the base of his skull.

"Here," someone says, taking the curtain from his hands while he's bent over and dusting the sand off of it. "We have pushpins," the farmer says, like Murphy's stupid. He drops the roll of tape and takes the tin of colorful pushpins from Monty's hands, stepping atop the stool and successfully pinning the fabric to the tent's overhang.

"Thanks," Murphy mumbles, experiencing the very foreign feeling of embarrassment even three feet higher in the air than the farmer. He turns his attention to stabbing a second pin into the muslin for good measure, as the other man tilts the white trellis he's tugging around toward himself and starts to pull it backwards to some unspoken destination.

Murphy is unfortunate enough to glance down at this moment, just in time to see the long, jaundiced stare that Monty leaves behind.

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When all is said and done the new encampment is an incredible firework display of color and wonder, not unlike the way it was in the valley, but exponentially more curious, more complete. Silver stars hang on strings from dull blue canvas tops, and trellises snaked through and blooming with the red and white roses of Monty's hand form halls between the three canopy tents. White curtains, dusted with glitter and cinched with glimmering rope wave like a woman's hair in the desert breeze. Tables drenched in gold cloth carry tens upon hundreds of glass display cases, wombs nurturing old magic, swirling inside of charmed watches and swords, feathers and books, candlesticks and even a child's hula hoop, tubes of lipstick, the skulls of mice, amulets.

The six of them stand side by side, passing a canteen of cold water down the line. A lizard darts through the sand.

There's a path of colorful quartz geodes acting as stepping stones leading from the road up the hill, growing busier by the hour, down to a wooden sign that reads, _"BEHOLD! THE OLD MAGIC ODDITIES SHOW!"_   in an elegantly carved, corkscrew print that embodies the curator with every absence of grain. Murphy doesn't get the chance to turn his eyes on the older man before he knocks him gently with a shoulder.

"What do you think?" Bellamy asks.

Anticipation, pride, satisfaction. It buzzes in the air as the others await Murphy's response eagerly, like a family sharing their secret recipe for the first time.

"Home sweet home," he answers, and, looking out over their little village of artifacts nestled in the desert outside the city, blanketed in a deep, rosy, amaranth glow with the setting suns, his new troupe sweating alongside him with calloused hands, clothed like circus clowns and accusing Jasper of backwashing into the canteen, he almost forgets that it isn't true.

"Only for a month," Bellamy reminds him. Murphy shrugs.

"Any longer and I'd get bored."

The other man snorts, elbowing Murphy before he steps forward to stand in front of the sum of them. "Alright," the curator says, wiping the smile from his lips and dusting off his hands for the sake of the gesture. "I thought prep would take longer but thanks to our trainee we've got some daylight to spare. I'll work tent one tonight, Harper on tent two, Clarke on three. I need Monty on dinner, and Raven on that new case. Jas, you're on the-" The Unmarked boy is already halfway up the hill with a crate under one arm and a jingling hat under the other, a perpetual skip in his step. Bellamy blinks. "-Box."

In a breath the group has scattered to their assigned stations, again leaving the bizarre image of trained soldiers dressed up like royal jesters in their wake. Raven salutes, backing toward the storage caravan where her worktable is buried. "Ladies and gentlemen," she says familiarly, habitually, "it's showtime," and slams the door in front of her.

Bellamy is staring up at the cars, carriages and the heads of horses over the hill, the million tiny orange lights pulsing from the towers in the city. Murphy clears his throat just loud enough to disturb him from his trance. "Uh," he says, "anything for me, Boss?"

The curator tosses Murphy's brass megaphone into his ready hands. "I'll send you out to collect tomorrow. Today you're on the box with Jasper. You can holler with him until it's time to walk."

Murphy glances warily up the hill, to where the boy's lanky figure is wiggling and waving, raving into his own megaphone at passersby.

Bellamy jerks a thumb at the geodes. "You're our walker. Anyone that Jasper draws in, you're gonna lead down here. You need to get them excited, talk up the show. Clarke likes characters and color coded you like a supervillain, so I'm assuming you're supposed to be cool and mysterious and creepy, which should be no problem for you."

"Watch it."

"Perfect," Bellamy says, brows quirked as if he's proud of himself. "People like to feel like they're getting away with a crime, walking into the black market. Make them a little nervous, make them think the guard is about to shut us down."

"Human directional?"

Bellamy shrugs. "Classy usher."

The merchant sighs. "Can't be anything too foreign, I guess," he decides, patting his trusty megaphone and giving Bellamy a short nod before making his way toward the uphill road. "Break a leg."

Bellamy grins. "You too, newbie."

The crimson sand falls away in powdery chunks under Murphy's boots as he stomps up the hill, reduced to hiking without the energetic sprint that propelled Jasper up so effortlessly. The Unmarked is perched on his toes atop a wooden crate next to a massive red arrow on a carved plank, a ribbon on a stick in one hand and a megaphone in the other. He jerks the yellow ribbon around in jagged lines through the air to get visual attention, but looks less like a sign spinner or ribbon dancer and more like someone trying to flag down help before going under quicksand.

"Antiques, artifacts, you dream 'em, we got 'em!" he crows, waving the ribbon in erratic little circles over his head. "Welcome the strange and the supernatural, Mages and Unmarkeds alike!"

This is different than Murphy's way of conducting business, with all he has to offer already on display in a place bereft of money. People from all over the planet travel this road, Immunis Way, an interstate road on the Outside free from government control, connecting and facilitating travel between the cities of the Collection (excluding closed-door policy, self-sufficient cities such as the kingdom). In Castus, the citizens don't need to be reeled in by merchants and vendors. They know what they want, what they can afford, and they go searching. Here, however...

A gaggle of ladies in short party dresses turn their heads like curious little minnows circling something shiny, but ultimately carry on walking, talking and laughing amongst each other. A man in a wide-brimmed hat stops in front of Jasper out of boredom, watching him shout with lazy eyes before he too moves along, recalling a fish contemplating a worm on a hook before deciding it isn't hungry after all.

"It's like fishing," he says aloud, and Jasper turns a blinding grin on him, absolutely in his element despite the rejections.

"Exactly!" he shouts unnecessarily, and Murphy's oncoming wince is halted by surprise as the boy places his ribbon between his teeth and extends a hand to Murphy. In his normal world, with a normal person, Murphy would have spit in his palm. In this world, turned so freshly on its on head, and with this boy that Murphy, quickly and inexplicably, trusts like he'd trust some woodland creature with big black eyes, he takes the hand.

He's tugged up onto the box which they share haphazardly, balancing the centers of their left and right feet, respectively, on the crate's precarious edges. Murphy wobbles once, and Jasper tosses an arm around his shoulders like they're in the zenith of holiday merrymaking. He's almost irritated by the gesture, but the feeling is overcome by the rush brought on by amity and well-intentioned touch, and being at the will of potential profit. Surely you haven't forgotten, Murphy's in his wheelhouse too.

"Cast your line, boy," the Unmarked says in the voice of a thick-bearded father from the rural cities, smiling ear to ear and holding his megaphone up to Murphy's mouth, waving his ribbon in lazier circles now with his other hand.

The street peddler recalls the ease of talking rubbish into treasure, and cranks up the volume. "COME ONE, COME ALL! THE ENCHANTMENTS OF THE FORGOTTEN WILL MYSTIFY YOU, THE SHADOWS LEFT BY THE OCCULT WILL YOU SHOCK YOU!"

It's a role he takes on like a poorly-tailored suit of second skin, exuberant and flashy in a way that comes naturally but burns on his tongue.

A little Unmarked boy with purple candy powder on his shirt and stains around his lips pulls his mother by the hand up to the box. Jasper is gaping, arm slipping from Murphy's shoulders, but the peddler pays it no mind. He squeezes his eyes shut and carries on doing what he does best: selling it.

"CURSES AND POWERS, ANCIENT MAGIC, THE LIKES OF WHICH YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN! THE ODDITIES OF THE DECEASED, THE HEIRLOOMS OF THE MOST POWERFUL MAGES IN HISTORY! YOU WON'T FIND THESE CHARMS IN ANY MUSEUM, FOLKS!"

He opens his eyes and hands Jasper the megaphone. A carriage driver points at them and a young couple in the cart shrugs, handing him payment and ambling over drunkenly. The boy, tall, handsome, and marked by a jagged letter 'M' beneath his ear holds a finger over the glass bottle in his date's hand and forms two little frozen cubes of alcohol inside of it to cool it down. She smiles and touches her finger to the unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. Embers glow at its end and he takes it from his lips to kiss her. Ah, young magic.

Jasper carries on yelling, louder, more dramatic, borrowing Murphy's merchant tongue for a lap. More come. An old woman with a cane in each hand. A trio of tween Mages spinning rocks on little dust devils. A businessman in a pinstriped suit, sporting tattooed eyes. An Animage leading a small procession of beetles.

Murphy hasn't seen so much magic, nor such strange people, since he was young. Since the King's reign; before the Red Order. He can't tear his eyes away.

Jasper stops yelling, and Murphy hadn't realized he'd gone to another universe until the silence requests his attention.

"Hey man," he says, waving his hand in front of Murphy's face. "Rubicundusol to walker."

He's shaken from his spell and nods, avoiding acknowledging the wary way Jasper watches him as he resumes his racket. He jumps down from the box and pulls a metaphorical theater mask over his face, throwing his arms open wide and moving in a slight crouch, creeping backward toward the geode path downhill. Is this creepy enough? He's aware of how he must look, dressed in dark flowing fabrics and silver jewelry, black makeup melting off of his eyes, walking like his pants are full. He decides he has to give one hell of a show, then.

"Follow me," he taunts the little crowd of fruitcakes and screwballs, "if you dare."

This snags them. The little boy stops licking his lips, the young couple pauses in their gluttony, the old woman smiles gummy and wide, the tweens drop their stones, the businessman blinks his black eyes, the Beetle Man gathers his bugs into his hands.

"You may see things that you will never forget!" There's a little cheer among the tiny crowd, something wimpy but wondrous. Hook, line, and sinker.

Murphy glides down the hill, chanting and teasing, warning the guests, asking again and again, "Are you sure?" in a rasping voice fit for a true criminal. It's ridiculous. He feels ridiculous.

He keeps up the act even as he has to put his arm around the waist of the old woman with the two canes, who's unable to retain purchase on the steep slope, in a fashion that isn't very villainous at all. She's still grinning, with that smile of a mad old woman who says yes to everything new, so much so that Murphy expects new teeth to bloom in her mouth and he feels... a way about it. A fluttering, warm-gutted kind of way.

It's ridiculous and he carries on doing it even as Bellamy spots him and watches his performance like a talent scout, arms crossed at the tent's entrance. He swaggers up to meet them despite the obvious childish energy and pride squirming around his head until it makes a knot out of his aura. When he reaches Murphy, a small distance between the two men and the potential guests, he places a roll of gold tickets on the walker's head like a crown.

"I've got to commend your follow-through; that was something. You're..." he extols quietly, as the gaggle _ooh_ s and _ahh_ s at the zoo of antiques stretched out before them, "something."

"Still no verdict?" Murphy asks in that same surly voice he'd perfected all the way down the path. "Is it a good something?" he adds, and Bellamy takes the tickets from his hair and averts his eyes to the crowd, looking suddenly darker in the face. There's a twinge of nervousness there, something bashful and endearing to Murphy.

"Don't be desperate, Murphy," he says, leaving to charge the customers and invite them inside, and if Murphy were a little girl, he would have blushed.

The walker keeps his ears open as he begins another trek up the hill, stomach turning in a way that he assumes is supposed to be pleasant, reminiscent of butterflies. "Behold," says that hauntingly deep voice in the distance, sounding every bit like black silk, "the Old Magic Oddities Show."

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"Sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy."

The curator stacks the blue paper bills into one large pile, and then begins dividing the unucents again.

"That's kind of a lot, isn't it?" Jasper says, widening his eyes hopefully as he passes an unlabeled tin can to each them circled around the fire.

"We had a half of our normal time, too," the Fulguri reminds them, hair standing on end and crackling with static as it sometimes is wont to do. Everyone tries to give her the decency of not staring.

"Multiplied twice that's exponentially more than usual," Monty chimes in, following Jasper with a can opener. Murphy holds his can out as Monty approaches, and the farmer opens it, but makes no effort to look at the walker before moving on. Murphy stuffs down the little pang of offense in his chest as he watches Monty smile at Raven on his right and receive a gentle punch in the shoulder, an act of easy camaraderie, before continuing on down the line. Murphy tries not to think about it too hard. He's a stranger, after all, and what does he care if the farmer likes him?

"Good location," Raven decides. Murphy looks into his mystery can. Half green beans, half soupy water.

More fucking beans.

"Good performance," Bellamy debates, switching a pointed look between Jasper and Murphy. The latter shoots his gaze quickly into the murky green depths of his dinner, but the former beams, distracted from his meal and switching on again.

"Spike showed some great technique up on the box. I think I learned a few tricks, actually," he praises unnecessarily, and Murphy feels like he's on fire as the group's eyes turn on him.

He also feels, unfamiliarly, proud.

"Did he now?" Bellamy says, cocking his head. Murphy chances a look up to see the shadows unlit by the fire moving underneath Bellamy's eyes, in the dips of his chin and Cupid's bow, the hollows of his cheeks as he watches Murphy. "We'd love to see some of that technique, wouldn't we crew?" he instigates, a fiendish little glint in his eyes.

"Nah, I, uh-" Murphy stammers, turning red from the toes up. Murphy used to think he couldn't be embarrassed, that he wasn't afraid of anything, didn't care what anybody thought of him. In the heart of this... unstoppable, collective force of impish joviality, this band of insufferable circus monkeys, he's regrettably learning a lot about himself. This force that he's steadily becoming deeply and irreparably charmed by. (This force that he's afraid he won't survive extracting himself from.)

"Speech, speech, speech!" Raven crows, hands cupped around her mouth.

Murphy, encouraged by all the bright eyes and feeling like the people who gave him a strip-show after his third day on site won't mind if he embarrasses himself, launches hesitantly into a ringleader impression. He welcomes a nonexistent audience to an imaginary circus, introducing each of the clowns by very familiar names and debatably rude descriptions which make the group erupt into a euphony of laughs and jeers. When he makes his way to introducing the very last clown, bolstered by the spirits of his little audience, he gestures at Monty like he'd done to introduce the rest of them and opens his mouth to try and think of something both funny and unlikely to make Monty hate him even more than he does presently. He doesn't get the chance.

Monty tosses his can and spoon into the pile of dishes collecting at the edge of the fire and executes a very effective dramatic exit away to the farm van. The group falls quiet, merriment fading fast as they watch him go. Murphy feels hot behind the ears and eyes, and can't decide whether he feels guilty, furious, embarrassed, or hurt, and has no idea what to do about any of it. So, characteristically, he yells.

_"Hey!"_

The farmer stops, turning around and tucking his hands into the pockets of his tunic hoodie, looking bored.

"What's your problem?" Murphy asks in a more level voice, but still threaded through with frustration. He feels a presence at his back but doesn't turn to investigate.

"Not a fan of the show," Monty says, shrugging, brows raised in a very unfamiliar and unwelcome _'What'cha gonna do about it?'_ expression.

Murphy feels his dull nails digging into his palms, and that unbearable hot strain behind his eyes. He's used to anger. He _gets_ anger.

This feeling isn't anger.

"What did I ever do to you, huh?" It falls flat, quiet, weak. He fucking... wants to be liked by these people. He wants to be liked by Monty. So what?

Monty switches his eyes to the side, looking past him, at the ground, and then belatedly meets Murphy's stare. A shadow moves behind him and Murphy can't even think straight enough to be haunted by it. "I don't think you're here to help us. Is that okay with you, lord and savior of the shitshow? Am I allowed to not be a willing victim of whatever con you're pulling?"

Murphy's jaw cracks. "I just wanted-"

Monty holds a hand up, closing his eyes. "Not interested in hearing your script. Enjoy your dinner," he interrupts, and then he's gone.

The merchant stands frozen in place, waiting for the sand to collect at the bottom of some hourglass. Before it does, there's a warm, familiar hand on his shoulder. "Murphy-"

He shrugs Bellamy off, walks to the caravan, slams the door behind him, and collapses on the bed.

Murphy has no right to be hurt, because Monty's exactly right. So why does it still burn?

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There's a little porthole window in the caravan and Murphy can see the moon. It's orange and round like the fruit and it reminds him of the Golden Eye.

He thinks about the amulet. Raven should be done with the display case tomorrow night, so that's when he'll take it. And he'll leave, and he'll sell the stupid thing for all the money he can milk out of it. He'll buy a mansion, one with a big pool shaped like a star. There'd be a marble staircase, but he'd put something nice over it, like velvet carpet, because his feet get cold. And he'd buy all the kinetipictures they've ever made in all the world, and if anyone ever mentioned any of them, the merit of the plot or the complexity of the kineticamerawork, at a fancy party where all the rich people get to go, Murphy would have something to say. And there'd be...

He isn't sure. He hasn't... made a lot of plans. But this is what he's supposed to-- this is what he wants to do. This was the goal all along. Get rich, die trying.

He'll never get sick from sleeping with the spiders and the dust, with mold on the ceiling and holes in the roof where the rain gets in. He'll never have to fight to get medicine for his son. He'll never have to trade his food for booze when his husband dies. He'll never have to do anything bad ever again. He can buy Mages out of the Ring, if he wants. He can get badass piercings and tattoos and fancy silver jewelry. Maybe he'll get a little ear cuff, like Bellamy.

The caravan door saws itself open noisily, the thumps of two boots disrupt the shrill sound of it closing again. A moth gets in.

"Hey," say the shadows.

"Hey," Murphy murmurs back.

Bellamy steps into the orange light from the moon and gives a strange almost-smile, with his lips tucked in a hard line. Murphy thinks that's what pity looks like, but he isn't sure. Strangely, he doesn't mind it. He thought that he would.

Bellamy hands him a little napkin. In it is a roll of bread. "Eat," he orders. Murphy frowns. "You didn't finish your beans."

Murphy frowns more. "Why didn't you just bring the beans, then?"

"I was going to. There was a bug in them." Bellamy says, dancing out of his harem pants and shirt. "I think it was one of that Animage's beetles."

Murphy finishes chewing a bite of the bread. "Protein," he says, in regards to the bug. The bread's a little stale. He's enjoying it regardless.

Everything feels honey slow when Bellamy climbs into bed next to him, that orange dagger of moonlight slicing through them like butter, warm and smooth, from the window. Bellamy watches Murphy eat for a moment.

"I'm sorry about Monty," he says. Murphy feels like dying instead of talking about this. "He's always a little skeptical of everything we do. Everyone we meet. It's nothing personal."

_It is,_ Murphy thinks. _It should be._

"Everyone else, we all trust you. Hell, we _like_ you, Murphy."

_Stupid,_ Murphy thinks. _Stupid stupid stupid._

"Be mean to me," he blurts, looking down where Bellamy's head rests on the pillow.

"What?" the curator asks, bewildered. "Why?"

_Because it'll make this easier,_ Murphy thinks.

"Because all this sappy shit is making me sick," he says instead, and Bellamy chuckles, so he thinks it was probably a very good thing to say.

Murphy licks his thumb to pick up the crumbs, folds up the little napkin and tosses it onto the bedside shelf. He stands to change into Bellamy's clothes, the ones he sleeps in. Bellamy watches him then, too. He knows he must think Murphy can't see him in the dark, but the light still crosses over his face in a wide slit, and there is very clearly at least one brown eye open and looking with purpose, intent. Murphy isn't obsessed with privacy or ashamed of his body, and that's why he doesn't say anything. That's why.

On a normal night, Bellamy sleeps under the sheet, and Murphy sleeps on top of the sheet, under the blanket. Tonight, though, Murphy is tired, and Bellamy is watching him undress, and this is the last night he'll sleep in this bed, next to Bellamy, under the sheet.

It's warm under the sheet.

Bellamy doesn't say anything, and they lie in silence until Murphy's eyelids feel heavy.

"Monty was picked for the Ring," the curator says quietly, suddenly. Murphy turns his head and looks at Bellamy. "He was twelve, and Jasper was his best friend and crazy, so he ran away with him. They lived in this abandoned cabin outside of the kingdom for four years. Monty grew the food. Beans. He grew a lot of beans." Bellamy smiles some. A tiny little moon smile. "That's why he can't grow much else yet. He left when he was so young, he isn't a trained Herbamage. He's so smart, though. He's learning so fast." Murphy says nothing, just watches what he can see of Bellamy's eyes in the low light. This crew's kids, Monty, Jasper, Harper, they'll never go without a father. "On Jasper's sixteenth birthday, about three years ago, they left the cabin and started walking. They didn't know where. They were just gonna walk until they found something, something cooler than an old cabin and a bunch of beans."

"A kidnapper and a bunch of beans," Murphy concludes. Bellamy punches him in the shoulder, grinning a little, and goes quiet again. Murphy doesn't feel like sleeping. He can't stop thinking about twelve-year old kids dying in the Ring, running through escape tunnels, starving in the woods.

"When Harper was about a year old her parents deserted the city, so she doesn't know anything but the Outside. They were part of a village, some exclusive band of deserters living together, hunting and gathering. When she was seventeen, everyone disappeared. She was out gathering, and when she came home the place had been pillaged and everyone was just... gone. Taken. She waited there, alone, for six months, but nobody ever came back." Murphy closes his eyes and hopes Bellamy keeps talking, despite not wanting to hear anything else at all. "She was hunting close by after the crew and I had set up camp in the valley, about two years ago. Jasper got up to use the hole in the middle of the night and caught her lurking around, peeking at the decorations, putting stars in her pockets."

His voice had gotten quieter and quieter until he stopped altogether, and Murphy waits to hear another that doesn't come for a while. He opens his eyes and finds oak eyes staring right at him.

"Hi," Murphy says, brow quirked.

"Sorry." Bellamy's face darkens in embarrassment. "I was trying to see if you were asleep."

"I'm not," Murphy answers uselessly, closing his eyes again. Bellamy lets the silence settle, turning on his back.

"Raven fought in the Ring. Lost her leg." Bellamy helping her down from the truck, down the hill in the valley. She has a prosthetic leg. Why Murphy jumped to the two of them knocking boots is beyond him. He considers the possibility of jealousy and then banishes the silly thought before it can bloom into something ugly. "She won. Obviously. We don't know... we don't know who she killed. She won't talk about it. They made her a new leg, as a fucking reward. As _"compensation for her sacrifice to Castus"._ "

"Bullshit," Murphy mutters. These tales are the kinds of horror stories that Unmarked kids share around campfires and Mage kids don't talk about, these stories only serve to make him feel even more like burning the kingdom to the fucking ground and the whole world too.

"No family, lost her boyfriend in the Ring during another match in the same ceremony. They were letting her see the royal Curi for physical therapy as part of her reward, and a few months later, as soon as she could, she walked off. Left. I found her collapsed about a mile into the tunnels on a trip to the kingdom for antiques. Carried her back to camp and she just... stayed. We still-" he pauses to laugh, "we still haven't talked about whether or not she's staying, and it's been over a year now."

"I'll ask her," Murphy mumbles, and Bellamy snickers, rolling onto his side to face Murphy again.

"Go for it," he mutters lazily, eyes fluttering. He carries on talking even with both of them resting, hiding, in the dark of their eyelids.

"Clarke's a deserter. Well, fugitive. Her mom was the royal Curi and her dad, the royal Ferru. Both hired for their skill." Murphy open his eyes to gape at Bellamy. Clarke's got roots in the last reign?

"Holy shit."

"I know," Bellamy laughs, and then sighs, brows knitting, mouth opening and closing like he's choosing his words carefully, plucking them from his database of acceptable conversation. "It was King Thelonious, actually, who wanted to build the Ring. Cut down on incarceration costs without the bad publicity of mass executions. It was only supposed to be used for violent criminals, not... not like how it turned out. Clarke's father, Jake, was under the King's command to start designing it. He refused, and they executed him. Treason under failure to obey orders," he says sullenly, face tight. "Clarke was five."

"Holy shit," Murphy repeats, productively.

Bellamy's stiff expression starts to turn sour, pained. "Twelve years later under, uh, the new Queen, Clarke tries to carry on his legacy, I guess, and destroys the new royal Ferru's designs for the Ring, all the models, the gate prototype, right before construction was supposed to start. She gets in fine, but getting out... she runs into the Ferru in the doorway. She's gone before he realizes what she's done, but the alarms have gone off, everyone's looking for her, and there's a warrant out for her arrest within the hour." Murphy's mouth is hanging open shamelessly at this point. Clarke's a _badass._

"She didn't have time to grab anything, didn't have time to tell her mom goodbye, just ran. Lived like Harper in the woods for about a year in a cave, losing her damn mind. I was just starting out with the show, about five years ago, and I had no idea where to look for artifacts. I had a couple from my personal collection but not nearly enough to charge anyone to see, and I'd quit my job as a teacher to... travel, and I needed money. So I would go everywhere, diving in dumpsters and in caves. I walked right her territory. There was a panther carcass on her floor, chalk drawings on the wall, all the works, and she was staring at me like she didn't speak any human language. I stood there for about two hours thinking she was a cavewoman and was going to eat me if I tried to run, before she decides to just casually ask what I'm looking for. Like we weren't in a standoff and had just sat together on the train." Murphy grins, liking Clarke a lot more all of a sudden. "She was the first person in my crew that wasn't, well, me."

Murphy yawns, thinking fondly of his father perched on the edge of his mattress and reading from the books in his head that they couldn't afford on paperback, weaving worlds for Murphy. Bellamy makes people feel like that. Safe.

"And then," he continues, voice sounding farther and farther away, and Murphy is too tired to see a problem with the math. "I met a street kid with this angry face, tall hair, all the supervillain basics." Murphy laughs into the pillow. "He turns out to be pretty funny and my family seems to like him, so I hope he sticks around. And he sold me this," he says, rolling over to grab something from his bedside shelf. Murphy's heart sinks.

Is Bellamy about to just hand him the amulet? He feels like running. He should run, right? He's supposed to get the amulet tomorrow. If Bellamy puts the charm in his hand he'll have to take it, and he'll have to run before he loses his chance. He'll just have to. He was supposed to get one more day.

"It's an enchanted bracelet, though I have yet to discover its magic properties," Bellamy murmurs sarcastically, taking Murphy by the wrist and sliding a junk metal charm bracelet onto it, the one he broke the bead off of and had to buy from Murphy's table when they first met. Murphy can breathe again. He tries not to think about why his body rejected the idea of getting what he wanted so badly, and why his stomach flutters looking at this ugly bracelet that will ultimately turn his skin green. That was the magic property, Murphy guesses. Invoking butterflies.

Bellamy flicks one of the charms, a silver star. "And he smells awful, too."

Murphy punches him in the stomach, wrist jangling. Bellamy shoves him and laughs an eyes-closed kind of laugh, a dimpled-cheeks kind of laugh. They grapple and slap and push and pull and kick until Murphy's draped perpendicular to Bellamy's torso and out of breath, head leaning off the side of the bed. Bellamy's chest rises and falls hard, lifting Murphy up and lowering him down like waves. They breathe together for a long time, long enough to get comfortable.

"And he's a Pyromage. And he's scared of magic. And he doesn't want to talk about it."

Murphy's muscles lock up.

He should be angry, furious that Bellamy's bringing it up, breaking his promise, digging into Murphy's life, his business. But he isn't.

Maybe it's the warm hand on his back all of a sudden, or the blood rushing to his head from hanging upside down. Maybe it's the years gone by in silence, or Bellamy's wholehearted, naive trust. Maybe it's being under the sheets and not obsessed with privacy, or ashamed of his body.

"There's a lot of things. Things that make kids stop believing in magic, you know?"

Bellamy rolls over attentively, watching him with the gentlest eyes Murphy's ever seen. Eyes like a fawn, like a good priest, like a father, a brother, a lover. "Alex, my- his father. This kid's father. He's a Pyromage too, and his mother's a Psychemage. When he gets sick, they aren't in a good place, financially. Well, hadn't ever been. They try to ride it out until their neighbor comes home- she's a Curi- but she must have deserted; the Ceremony was coming up. So she never came back. His father tries to steal some drugs, breaks into a pharmacy and gets caught on a kineticam. The medicine doesn't work, the royal guard's at their door within a week, and he doesn't come home either. His mother keeps it together for a month or two, then she's selling their food for booze, stops going into work, and is passed out more than she's conscious enough to, you know, scream at him. Throw things at him. Hit him. Cry," he stops breathing, has to remind himself. "She's dead by the holidays, on the bathroom floor covered in vomit." Bellamy's chest stops rising for a moment, stilling both of them. Murphy carries on before he can't. "The kid doesn't want to get reassigned so he buries her himself, waits a couple of days, takes care of the house, like maybe he could go back to school and become something, maybe he could be one of those people who bad things happen to and they turn out okay. Then one day I guess he just- he just snaps. He walks all the way to the castle, down to the royal guard's settlement, and he watches them. Watches the one who took his father. When it's night and no one can see him, he puts his hands out in front of the guard's cabin and then it's- it's on fire. And the guard's still inside."

Murphy sits up, straddling Bellamy's knees and moving off of them to kneel by his hip. His stare strays from the caravan wall to Bellamy's face. There's nothing there. No horror, no disgust, no fear. He doesn't know if he wants to get a rise out of him, if maybe he thinks he deserves to be spat on, but he almost wants to scare Bellamy.

"So's his wife."

Bellamy just keeps on watching him with those flickering woodland eyes and Murphy doesn't wait for a sign, for an hourglass, for permission to continue, because somewhere along the way telling his story became about _him_ again.

"He didn't know he was a Pyro. He wasn't marked, everyone thought he was a dud. Two Mage parents and a son with nothing to show for it. He- I- I didn't even know why I was down there. I don't know what I thought would happen." He's shaking. He hates when that happens. "The- the whole fucking thing went down."

Bellamy reaches a hand out to rub a finger against the place on his neck where the Mark should be, like he doesn't believe him. A shiver crawls down Murphy's spine. His head hurts. Bellamy folds his hands on his chest and looks at Murphy expectantly, waiting for the rest, and Murphy can't believe he's still talking. It feels as if he's under a spell.

"Three years later I- uh, he's still living in the house under his mom's name, digging through the trash and selling it to pay the bills. He steals food, clothes, blankets, anything he can get his hands on. He tries a couple times to turn things around, works as a nurse in the North hospital for a month once. Some guy his age gets rolled in and dies of shock right in the hallway. Severe burns, all over his body. He walks out the front doors and never comes back. Never has another job, keeps on the way he had before. Meets his girlfriend a year later in a dumpster. Her name was Emori."

He hasn't said that name in years. Why would he? Emori Emori Emori Emori Emori.

_Emori._

"Ferrumage. Would've married her that first week," he says with no hint of exaggeration in his voice, and Bellamy's face scrolls through a plethora of emotions. Murphy identifies one of them as fear.

"She's drawn for the Loyalty Ceremony. He tells her to run, they could leave. She's from the Western division of the Collection; honor, pride, you know. They don't desert." His eyes burn. Why is he still talking? "She dies in the Ring like all good Mages do, right? So- so much for fucking magic."

His vision gets blurry as a hand finds his shoulder. He feels delirious, hysteric when he starts speaking again, words rushed and bordering on panicked. "It kills people, that's all it does. We kill people with it and we kill people for killing people with it and we kill people just for having it. No fucking point." He blinks back more tears but all he can see is gray through a watery film over his eyes. "No fucking reason."

"Oh," Bellamy whispers, pitying, pained. "Murphy."

At that, the warm wetness of his eyes spills over all at once. It's been a long time, so he doesn't stop it. He isn't obsessed with privacy, isn't ashamed of his body. He watches a teardrop fall and make a little gray circle on Bellamy's nice white shirt. _Oh,_ he thinks. _Sorry._ He didn't take his makeup off.

Bellamy takes his face in his hands, wiping the black tears away with the heel of his palm. He maneuvers Murphy to sit on the edge of the bed with all the delicacy of a child caring for a favorite doll, but leaves him sitting there, alone in the caravan. Murphy collapses into his hands in the spot still echoing with Bellamy's abandoned warmth, trembling with suppressed sobs, the breath escaping from him in little sounds, huffs and coughs, and returning desperately in littler sounds, sniffs and gasps. He tucks a fist under his face where the tears are meeting to keep the sheets clean.

The door opens again. "Don't come in," someone says.

Warm hands turn Murphy's face up and wipe his cheeks with a wet cloth, sweep over his eyes, his temples. They dry his face with the cloth's other side and leave it in his hands. Murphy pulls his legs up onto the bed and stares at the cloth, kneads it in his fists, feeling impossibly heavy, miserable. When he finally looks up, Bellamy's sitting cross-legged across from him, staring at him again. He gives a crooked smile that makes no sense here, has no place in this hour. Murphy smiles back weakly, feeling stupid, hiccupping a wet laugh.

"Oh, Murphy," Bellamy says again, inexplicably, and pulls Murphy's face to his shoulder, slow and warm. "No one's gonna hear you." The dam does not burst. Murphy's built a stronghold in it, has spent years reinforcing it, deploying troops to it, laying the bricks, higher and higher. He doesn't know how to let go like that. He can't.

His arms shake between their chests, he couldn't return the embrace if he tried. It feels like an animal inside him-- the sadness, the hurt-- some formidable thing like a great whale. It takes up all of his body, crooning in the night for someone to help, and when help comes it can't get out. It drains him of the ocean that all good people have inside them, the ocean where they allow truth and joy and trust and love to swim. He's all too-shallow water and pounding on locked doors. It's his mother in there, his father, his lover, his victims, himself. It isn't a yawning, gaping place where a heart should be. It's everything he's got all crammed inside so tight that nothing can get out, and nothing can get in.

A wide, warm hand moves over the ridges of his spine, against the back of his head, the nape of his neck while he struggles to breathe past sobs that won't come out. He's surrendered to the impossibility of holding his head up, slumped against Bellamy, bathed in this stupid stranger's warmth, this stupid stranger that feels like he's been a friend for a million years. "I was wrong," Bellamy whispers. "You aren't very cool at all."

Murphy bursts into crumpled, hiccupping laughter, pulling his soaked face from Bellamy's chest to drop it into his hands. Bellamy tugs the sheet up over Murphy's shoulders, watches dumbly as it falls into his lap instead. Murphy makes slits in his fingers and stares through them. Bellamy holds his hands up and does the same, watching him with warm eyes. The hurt, the frustration, the pain, it all dulls to a simmer, still inside only quiet again, like it always does. Murphy could cry all he wanted, could snot-rocket in every country in the world. Relief never comes. He's emotionally blue-balled for life.

"Sorry," Murphy mumbles into his palms.

"Don't care," Bellamy mumbles back. "Seen a lot of ugly criers."

Murphy drops his hands and kicks at Bellamy's leg. Bellamy rubs the place where a bruise is sure to form.

"You gonna be okay if the boys come in for the night?"

Murphy glances briefly at the door and nods. Bellamy gives him another one of those pity smiles, wiping another stray tear away with his palm, and Murphy thinks he might actually like it a little bit. He's not understanding the universal war on pity at all.

"Thanks," Bellamy says with his hand on the door, satisfaction and finality in his voice, like an archaeologist coming to a conclusion about buried treasure. Murphy raises a brow, rubbing his pink face as dry as possible, so dry that if anyone ever saw him they'd think he'd never cried once in all his life. "For talking to me."

Murphy swallows. Talking is a nice way to put it. "Pleasure," he croaks out in a pitiful voice.

Monty and Jasper tumble in just as Murphy's head hits the pillow and he forces his eyes closed, Jasper blabbering on about their little valley-warming party in the girls' caravan and begging to know why they couldn't come in until someone hits him and hisses at him to shut up, a whisper that sounds like Monty's. The noise dies down eventually, and Murphy lies awake with his knees against his chest, like maybe if he makes himself compact enough he can store the day's humiliation more effectively.

Bellamy returns to the bed, and plays the piano on Murphy's back, gentle taps along the keys of his spine, his ribs. Whatever song he's playing fades out at some point in the night, while a shadow eclipses the moon like a blink and vanishes again, Bellamy's hand slumping against Murphy's body. Murphy, who lies awake, mind swirling with stories and seeing faces in the dark.

"You never told me the one about you," he whispers, voice hoarse with disuse. No one answers.

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In his normal world, Murphy would have dreamt of fire and of disease, of bruises and of blood. In this world, turned so freshly on its on head, and with this man that Murphy, quickly and inexplicably, trusts like he'd trust a lover with big brown eyes, he dreams of amulets and of velvet carpet, of freckles and of spelunking in caves.

   
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey this is the last chapter where everyone has any semblance of emotional control including me. who's ready for shit to smack the mf fan! 
> 
> pls leave a little itty bitty kudos or a little itty bitty sweet comment if u want to bc i would love it <3 thank u for reading


	4. the carnwennan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Carnwennan; the white-hilt dagger with the magical ability to blanket its wielder in shadow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS CANON-TYPICAL VIOLENCE AND BLOOD]
> 
> ☆ Copy and paste in new tab to set the mood, right click and select loop: https://youtu.be/jdu_IQ6usq4 ☆
> 
> Note: this is my favorite chapter

_"Welcome all to Immunis Central, capitol of the Outside. You are free."_

Immunis Central, the I.C., is a bustling courtyard circled in rings upon rings of glass, brick, and steel, shops and skyscrapers and kiosks and restaurants and amphitheaters. People dance in the streets. Mages paint their bodies and perform painstakingly honed feats of strength and ability. Deserters without homes sit on the corners of buildings and lay out blankets in the damp dankness of alleyways. Visitors from all over the Outside eat and drink, flick coins into the fountain and make wishes. Children meet their first friends and play jacks in the road.

The I.C. is run under the broken hand of anarchy, where business-owners make their claims using borrowed money and crimson violence behind closed doors, where new buildings are erected of individuals' own accords, and the Central's guests act as reinforcers of common courtesy in place of a police force. It's a notoriously wet roadside attraction, in every shade of gray you've seen.

There is a tall glass obelisk in the center of the capitol, etched with a detail-barren map of the area on its southernmost side, the names of the I.C.'s deserter founders on the east, the names of urban cities that Magebreak, or suppress Mages' abilities before they are allowed to enter, on the west. The northernmost side of the obelisk, from top to bottom, is made of slate, once bare. Deserters and travelers from all over come to carve into it the names of loved ones lost to persecution, to name their martyrs for a silent protest built upon fleeing. The names began to overflow as rural cities and persisting kingdoms followed in Castus' footsteps and began to cleanse their populations of the dangerous Mage subspecies through increasingly creative means, and the slate was extended into the cement beneath the obelisk, eventually ribboning into the street and beyond.

Murphy nearly feels guilty for not trying incredibly hard to tiptoe between crudely etched names, but the rest of his flock walks over them plainly, observing their surroundings with the steady familiarity of one traversing their local grocery store. He watches the ground while he walks and makes mental notes of spaces in the slate, for names he has in mind and for names he hopes to never fill them with.

There's a lot to be done in the I.C. and the group partakes in what fraction they can afford. Clarke makes little red checks for the boxes on her grocery list while she peruses produce. Ultimately, they'll bring back a haul consisting of their usual cheap, bulk items with long shelf lives: brown rice, nuts and raisins, prepackaged survival rations, energy bars, canned vegetables, and debatably fresh fruit, as a reward for their last show's sudden and surprising success. Jasper and Monty see who can spit the farthest past the bordering fence while the healer fills a cloth tote to its seams with fruit: tomatoes, apples, and oranges. Murphy can see the bulge of a watermelon in the bottom, but keeps his mouth shut in the hopes that it's a treat for the troupe.

Later, they watch a magic performance in which a Pyromage and a Hydromage pretend to fight, extinguishing one another over and over in powerful whips, spirals and waves of energy, the likes of which the untrained Mages of the Old Magic Oddities Show's crew may work all their lives to achieve. They heckle and clap, gasp and cheer all the same. Their unabating thrill for life, for the human experience despite all their hardships, leaves Murphy wandering steps behind them, like a dark energy that might sizzle and dissipate if drawn too near to the light.

In the belly of the market street, Bellamy gives him a couple of unucents to buy himself some underwear at a garments and fabrics booth, and the old woman crocheting a nice red toque inside of the booth has two canes on either side of her lawn chair. She smiles that familiar, gaping smile at Murphy and has him wait around for her to finish the hat. He does so with some reluctance, but feels much safer perched on the edge of her yarn table, watching his new friends blow bubbles from the hands of a Hydromage in the square.

When she presents the hat to him, trembling slightly, he pulls it over his head, hair splayed out underneath it wildly. A gift for his hospitality on the hill. She kisses him on the cheek and calls him a good boy before he offers his gratitude, and to his dismay, reuniting with his people mere steps away from the booth results in a mocking procession of cheek kisses and praises of good boy-ish nature.

Jasper's kiss is slick and loud, punctuated by a cacophonic laugh. Raven's is firm and followed by a hard pat and a fierce grin. Harper's is soft, a ruffle of hair as she snatches his new hat and wears it for herself. Clarke's is rich with candor and a platonic, almost motherly sort of love, a feathery kiss to the temple and a whispered, "We're lucky to have you," followed by an audible "good boy," for show. When Bellamy's up to bat he leans close to Murphy's ear and presses his lips to that soft, sinking place beneath the cheekbone. It doesn't feel like anything particularly familial nor romantic, especially not in the bustling courtyard of tough-skinned deserters and clownish entertainers, and it doesn't provoke that little hurricane feeling in Murphy's insides, but it lingers. It's soft and simple and it stays there only a second too long; just long enough that something has changed. Somewhere in the two of them, a gear has shifted, a brick has fallen, a light has turned on. The butterfly effect, quietened.

Murphy laughs, red in the face, and elbows Bellamy away before he gets the chance to follow up with "Good boy," which would only come out devastatingly wrong.

Murphy's eyes fall on Monty, who looks analytically between Bellamy and himself, and whose frowning mouth quirks into a small 'o' before he can turn his face to hide it.

Half of the following hour is spent perusing booths, sharing raisins on a bench by a leaky fountain, dancing to a harpist dressed like an angel in the courtyard. Murphy spins Clarke around under his finger like a music box ballerina and watches her laughter spill out like birdsong into the pearly air, tries not to notice Bellamy looking on fondly from his seat by the flowerbed.

When the suns are at their highest point of the gray morning, turning the sky that clamshell hue, they find solace in the shade of a wide alleyway dotted with scammer games just around the corner from the theater.

"How about that kinetipicture?" Raven asks, peering around the wall enough to let the sunlight brush the tip of her nose. Bellamy scratches his neck, looking around at the flashing, pink and orange neon sign of the I.C. Theater.

"If Clarke's done with groceries then we've got a little bit left..."

Clarke gives a thumbs up from her place next to Jasper, the two of them watching a game of thimblerig with rapt attention. Raven turns the corner with a hopeless-looking face to check the ticket prices, the face of a child promised a pony for the holidays every year and getting peppermints instead. Murphy watches the game while they wait, perched on the brick wall next to Bellamy who cools himself down with Harper's ornate little hand fan, bright pink and printed with gold curls of ivy.

Jasper finally gives up a coin and sits down to play for himself rather than spectating others being scammed out of their money. Every once in a while, when Murphy's focused on the location of the shiny blue coin moving beneath the three wooden cups, a burst of wind breathes over the side of his face, his neck. Bellamy fans him absent-mindedly and habitually.

"Eight unucents per ticket. That's forty-eight for all of us." Raven does not emote, but she emits the stale air of fatalism. Bellamy looks to Clarke, who looks into the pouch around her waist, then looks to Bellamy, who looks to Raven with a sorry frown.

"Figures," she grumbles.

"Next time," Bellamy promises. "We'll start saving up. We've never had anything leftover before."

Jasper turns his face to the conversation, but keeps his eyes trained on the cups. "We can just make our own kinetipicture," he says, simply. "I'd be the star, of course."

"Of course," Monty agrees, urging a dandelion to grow between the cracks of the sidewalk. He strains, and releases his breath in a whoosh when it sprouts and blooms. The group claps. The thimblerig operator dons an unimpressed look, momentarily distracted from his moves.

The mistake does not go unnoticed by Jasper, who uses it to his advantage and wins a little blue hacky sack. As they exit the alleyway, Jasper bouncing the toy on the sides of his boots, Monty mutters, "You're welcome for the distraction, brat."

"Thanks," Jasper says, throwing his arm around Monty's shoulders and kissing him sweetly and theatrically on the nose, as he is wont to do. So they're a couple of conmen themselves, Murphy thinks, and smiles a little to himself. He's down at the end of the wide line they walk in, peach sun pouring over them and hot wind whipping their hair around. Bellamy catches him, needles him between the ribs with an elbow.

"What's so funny, Murph?" Bellamy says quietly as the rest of the group chatters on, walking aimlessly. Murphy pockets his hands, glancing periodically from the ground or the sky to Bellamy and the others.

"It's kind of contagious, huh?" he mutters, and Bellamy gives him a goofy, lopsided smile.

"Yeah," he answers, looking on fondly. "It is. Make you sick?"

Murphy laughs, kicking a loose piece of slate chipped from the shiny walkway. "Terminally."

Bellamy, seeming satisfied with this answer, throws an arm over Murphy's shoulders. They're mirroring the other two boys, Jasper now fighting Monty off from his hacky sack while keeping his arm wound around his waist. Murphy tenses up until he finds the weight relaxing, grounding. Comforting, is Bellamy's side brushing against his while they walk, hand dancing by Murphy's chin to the sound of a guitarist who's standing in the middle of the street. The group breaks in half to move around him like parting waters, and Murphy looks up from his feet to see they've gone in a circle and landed themselves in front of the theater again.

"One second, I need to take a piss," he says quickly, taking Bellamy's hand to move his arm off of his shoulders with great reluctance, and plans to mourn the loss in private. "You guys head on, I'll catch up."

"Uh, but-" Bellamy stammers, looking strangely at his own hand before he collects himself. "Alright. Be safe."

Murphy winds around the building and its glowing signs, before circling back, checking that the group is gone around the corner. It feels strange to be alone again, if only for a striking moment. He tries not to think about how long it'll take him to adjust to that lifestyle again.

He approaches the ticket kiosk, a little brick and glass octagon nestled underneath the theater overhang between two wide steel doors. The attendant is a teenage girl in a maroon vest, bangs long-since falling past her eyes which are half-closed and fighting sleep. There's no one around, so Murphy saunters up to the booth with his hands in his pockets, tapping on the glass to wake the girl up.

"Uh, sorry," she murmurs, wiping drool from the corner of her lips. "Welcome to the I.C. Theater, what-"

"There's a couple of guys around the building digging stubs out of the trash, talking about going in through the back; thought I'd let you know," he interrupts.

Seeing he isn't interested in purchasing a ticket, her tone changes, somehow sounding even more dull. "What do I care?"

"The boss is counting seats today, says if there's any more discrepancy in ticket sales he's gonna take it up with the clerk in the kiosk," he says, looking bored, and the girl stares at him for a second that stretches on until she pushes her seat back and shuts the kiosk door behind her. She makes her way around to the back of the theater wordlessly, walking a little faster the further she gets from the stranger.

Murphy walks to the edge of the street, turns around again and then enters the booth like he belongs in it, sitting down in the chair. He tears six tickets from the roll, but just as he's getting up, a man approaches with his daughter in tow.

"Uh, eight for adults, five for kids," Murphy says. He rips two tickets and takes the money, wishes them a good show, puts the cash in the register, leaves the booth and shuts the door behind him. _Huh,_ he thinks. Maybe he should take up ticket kiosk attendance.

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

Raven pounds the air when he passes the tickets out, Jasper hooting and hollering in Monty's ear, who smiles just as wide.

"Murphy! How'd you get these?!" Harper exclaims, holding her little rectangle up to the second sun as if she doesn't believe it's real.

Murphy shrugs. "Found them on the ground."

Everyone is too excited to see through the effortless, shoddy lie. Bellamy frowns at the thief, tugging Murphy to the side by the elbow.

"We aren't saving your ass if you get into trouble out here, understand?"

Murphy yanks his arm away, scowling. "Slow your roll, officer. I might wind up thinking you don't trust me."

Bellamy's air changes at this and he sighs, rolling his shoulders back and dropping his imposing stance. "We've worked too hard and too long to not have targets on our backs. I don't need anyone tangling us up in their shit."

The walker rolls his eyes, wiggling his ticket obnoxiously close to Bellamy's face. _"Relax,_ Bellamy. It's not like I'm gonna get shanked; it's a couple of kinetipicture tickets."

Bellamy frowns, crossing his arms. "So you _did_ steal them."

"Now who said that?" Murphy answers innocently, slipping a ticket into the pocket of Bellamy's trousers and casting a devilish look over his shoulder as he walks toward the theater, the rest of the troupe scrambling to follow and clamoring with excitement.

"He's gonna get us killed," Bellamy mutters, but is drowned out by the splashing of the fountain, the notes of a guitar, the cheers of a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed group of antique show characters heading for a building that Bellamy's looking at like it'll grow hands and pick him up, chew on his head with windowpanes for teeth.

"I propose we go through the backdoor so they don't try to sell us any of that overpriced shit," Murphy advises, clearly trying to avoid the booth operator he conned as they approach the street corner, and ignores Bellamy's huff from the back of the line.

The next hour and a half passes in Murphy entering the lobby anyway, fishing empty popcorn buckets from the trash and asking for six refills, knocking into a man carrying an armful of drinks, spilling the three sodas across the lobby floor and tossing three empty cups from the trash next to the puddle while the man is in the bathroom, having been promised by the walker that he'd purchase replacements to make it up to him while he's gone, then pointing to the spill for the clerk at the counter and requesting six new cups. Clarke happens to love cherry soda, so Bellamy keeps his mouth shut.

They're led to the prime theater seats by Murphy, the epicenter of the showing room. He deliberately tips a little bit of his drink onto the floor of the row in front of them, and in the sweetest voice he can muster, warns every other picturegoer who tries to sit there that they'll be stepping in sticky soda for the length of the kinetipicture. They have a perfect, unobstructed view of the screen when it flickers on, and Bellamy can't even feel good about it.

Once the picture starts, a fast-paced story about a group of misfit teenagers fighting their way through a post-apocalyptic world contaminated by territorial disputes and environmental hazards, Murphy is finally, at last, quiet. If Bellamy, who rejected a tub of garbage popcorn earlier, skims off the top of Murphy's, it's only to keep him from feeling sick later. If he maybe tosses a few kernels at his nose, his ear, in a way that certainly does not recall anything remotely similar to flirting, he's just punishing him for stealing the popcorn in the first place. If he maybe rests his arm atop his seat and gets a little tired, drops it down to rest across Murphy's shoulders, it's only to keep track of him, to make sure he doesn't slip out of his seat and go off to disturb the peace any more than he already has. If maybe Murphy looks a little pink in the face during flashes of light, if maybe he drops his head to Bellamy's shoulder for a second and thinks better of it, sitting upright again as if it had happened on accident, well, he must not be feeling well after all that butter.

(Halfway into the movie Raven thunks her head against Bellamy's opposite shoulder, tilting her face up to make fish lips at him and produce exaggerated kissing noises in an apparent mockery of Murphy, who's doing nothing but watching the movie with his feet kicked up on the seat in front of him, looking positively uninterested in Bellamy or the state of his stupid arm. Raven seems to think she knows better.)

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Bellamy presses a wad of bills into Murphy's left hand, and a stack of colorful, handmade flyers and a stapler in the other. "This is where we leave you, Collector," he says.

It's Murphy's first (and last) day of collecting for the show, combing the world for magic antiques for the troupe to put on display. The thing he promised he would do. The thing he swore he could do. The thing he has no idea how to do.

"Put these flyers up around the Center; the money's for if you find anything worthwhile and for a ride back to camp," Bellamy instructs, and Jasper shoots Murphy a thumbs up, gnawing on an energy bar that he certainly doesn't need after a sugary soda. He'll be bouncing off the caravan walls by the time the show starts.

Harper meanders over to return Murphy's toque and tug it down over his eyes, which he adjusts with a bemused grin. "What will we do without our best new showman?" Raven whines, only half-serious, with her hands folded over her heart. Bellamy grins, scratching his stubble as his eyes absently follow a hooded figure strolling along the fence.

"I think we'll live."

Murphy walks backwards into the courtyard as they file out of the exit to get back in the truck, suns finally arching down in the color of egg yolks in the afternoon and silhouetting them against the barren desert that stretches out past the slate columns and the interstate. "Parting, such sweet sorrow, am I right?"

Bellamy shakes his head in amusement, and although Murphy can't see the look on his face as he departs, he smiles back. "Be safe," Bellamy throws over his shoulder, to which Murphy returns a gesture of deuces and doesn't drop until they've blended in with the crowd of the road.

"Alright Murphy," he mutters to himself, turning to head into the belly of the I.C. "It's showtime."

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He has to find something, he decides, taping one flyer to a lamppost and shoving another into the hands of an unwilling passerby. He owes the troupe at least one thing, one thing that works. One thing that's really magic.

He spends all hours of the sun scouring booths, carts, art shows, magicians' chests, novelty shops, the glass display cases of lobbies, of waiting areas, and comes up empty from every place, from every hole in deep dirt. He returns to his roots and finds himself ankle-deep in dumpsters, and has nothing to show for himself save for a chipped, glass novelty prism, a find that would be more than perfect for his own table back in the kingdom, but is worthless on Bellamy's.

Wandering aimlessly lands him nothing in the same way that Old World pirates didn't sail off of the edges of the earth without an X in mind, but he's without a treasure map and has no real collecting skills despite what his résumé may suggest. He isn't Bellamy, who peruses foreign markets and high-end antique shops, barters and haggles, cave dives and traverses the world. Bellamy, who saves people, recruits them, trusts them. Murphy feels like a fraud. He feels... useless. 

Slumping against an alleyway wall and soothing the headache forming in the back of his skull on the cold brick, Murphy allows himself some forgiveness. The plan was to follow the curator until he could get that amulet back, follow him to the ends of the world if he had to, and Murphy nearly has. Tonight's it. Whether or not he finds something out here to leave in his wake, a peace offering, won't disturb his endeavors. It's almost over now. All of this. Chasing, searching, scheming, stealing. Pretending to like these people, pretending to want to be friends with them, to be family. Pretending to like Bellamy most of all. Bellamy, for all his sweetness and brass, for his cinnamon eyes and constellated skin, for his warmth and his dogged tenacity to succeed, to provide, to care. Murphy is exhausted by acting charmed by him, when he isn't. He... certainly isn't. He's a one man show and he's nearing the end of his performance. It'll all be over soon.

His eyes are drawn away from watching the kinetipicture ticket stub in his hands with unintentional fondness, running his thumb along the ridged edge, by a group of raucous, young bruisers tumbling drunk out of a doorway to Murphy's right, one that spills out the cacophonous noise of a dive bar until it rattles shut again.

They gather along the wall, the shortest of them squatting to light a generous-looking joint while the others curse and bedamn whoever kicked them out of the bar, likely for being too tanked to spell their own names, let alone to hold polite conversation with anyone getting in the way of their billiards game. Murphy remembers those days, knows his way around a glass and a fist. He's not any older than the guys kicking rocks at the dumpster, but he had to grow up a lot sooner. These goons look like their pockets are bulging with their inheritances, like they could drink themselves into oblivion for the next ten years and come out with squeaky clean records and penthouses in the urban cities for the following ten.

The short one keeps to himself and his joint, black suspenders drooping from his waist and a ratty green hat skewed atop a shaved head. He's Marked, with a bold line underneath it which suggests the presence of someone who's earned his right to live freely in either Castus' Ring or a similar challenge from another kingdom. The two who look like brothers are picking up pieces of glass from the ground and flicking them at each other, also Marked, donning brightly colored jeans with rips and tears that look purposeful and manufactured. Their faces appear sunken and tired, but Murphy guesses the effect likely isn't from any hardship. The tallest of them, who can be no more than two or three years older than Murphy, is Unmarked, wearing the trousers of a pinstripe suit and a wife-beater tank, a thick chain around his neck and matching pocket watch chains at his waist. The silver designs around his eyes and cutting through his brows are evidential of a high class kid from the New City. There's a thick ring on his finger, likely an heirloom, encasing a smoothed-down emerald that glitters supernaturally.

_Bingo._

"Hey!"

The group of men doesn't startle, but casts its attention to Murphy as he approaches, leisurely, hands pocketed, face forced into a lazy kind of half-smile.

"Problem?" responds the man in the silver makeup, the leader of the lummoxes Murphy guesses.

"Nice to meet you too, my day's going great, thanks," he retorts, brandishing the ticket stub and pulling the red toque from his head and dropping it to the cement, having slipped in a few bills from the wad Bellamy gave him to plant them as tips. "You guys like magic?"

"Sorry, man, we don't have any cash," says one half of Tweedledee and Tweedledum, picking glass from his arm.

"And we're good on magic," answers the other, summoning a brick from the end of the alley and catching it in his hand in a way that Murphy perceives as a threat, biting down on the inside of his cheek in an effort not to give them a reaction. Cocky little douche.

He snaps the paper ticket against the back of his hand, raising a brow for show. "This isn't ordinary magic; think you're too smart for illusions?"

"Hell yes we are," Tweedledee exclaims confidently, crossing his arms over his chest. Tweedledum appears to agree, Suspenders looks at least curious, and Richie Rich in all the silver rolls his eyes, but doesn't protest.

"Alright," Murphy says, "Come on up Meanface, let's put a skip in your step." He nods his chin toward the side of him as the guy's sidekicks shove Richie forward, laughing and drunk off their asses. He pushes back with reluctance, grumbling until he's at Murphy's side, near towering over him, all lean muscle and imposing height. "Keep your eye on this ticket, got it? 'Cause it gets away from me sometimes, it's slippery."

He's already irritating himself with all the unnecessary commentary of posturing as a magician, meant to overwhelm and distract, but he hates to hear anyone say so much in one breath and that includes his own voice. Richie sighs irritably, but trains his eyes on the ticket in Murphy's hand. "I want you to take this ticket from me and when I turn around I want you to put it in one of your pockets, doesn't matter which one."

Murphy hands off the stub, turns his back to Richie and quirks a brow at the other guys. Richie will put it in the furthest edge of either front pocket because he doesn't want a strange magician reaching near any precious goods, and Murphy will notice which of the pocket watch chains is hanging differently than it was before.

When he turns around, the chain on the right has been pulled, stiffened to form a shallower loop. Murphy turns him unnecessarily in circles, thanking him for participating, blabbering on about where he might've hidden that pesky ticket. He places his left hand on Richie's left shoulder while standing on the opposite side, deliberately blocking his vision to that pocket. He feigns checking underneath the strap of the man's tank, and then places his foot between Richie's feet, nudging them apart and narrating about seeing if the ticket will fall out of his pants' legs. Murphy dips his right hand into Richie's pocket, takes the ticket and his wallet just for hoots, and because of the closeness of their legs he'll mistake the feeling of Murphy's hand invading his pocket for Murphy's thigh touching him. He then pats Richie's pockets and shrugs as if he doesn't feel anything there, and just can't find it.

He folds the ticket in half between his fingers and stands with his hands on his hips by Richie's side. "Are you sure you didn't lose it?" he asks, pulling a perplexed expression.

"Boo!" heckles Tweedledum, thinking Murphy's a shitty magician who can't find his own ticket, and Tweedledee chuckles, blowing a raspberry with his tongue out. Murphy ignores them, hums in thought while he looks Richie over theatrically.

"I didn't want to have to check your back pockets, but if that's where you decided to put it..."

The silver-eyed man rolls his eyes again, visibly shifting away from Murphy. "Didn't know this was gonna be a strip search."

"Actually, can you squat and cough?"

He gives him a bewildered, if not scandalized look. He definitely thinks Murphy's a predator. "Are you fucking with me?"

"Yeah," Murphy says, holding his chin up against the force of the nasty, threatening look the guy aims at him. "That's kind of the idea of this," and Richie actually looks a little caught off guard by that, indignant anger slipping.

"Do it! Do it!" his moronic friends chant, and he shakes his head, grumbling, but does half-heartedly squat down and force out a cough, turning a little red in the face with embarrassment. Murphy makes a gaseous little raspberry noise with his mouth and drops the ticket behind Richie, looking as if it fluttered out of his ass during the cavity check and the two boys erupt into screams and laughter, shoving each other over, and even Suspenders has a weird, reptilian little grin on his face.

"And your participation prize," he adds, tossing Richie his wallet back just for an extra sparkle. The other boys break into applause, still cackling, yet amazed by Murphy's pickpocketing and looking entirely too interested in the logistics of it. It's not a great trick, it's hardly a trick at all, but the kids are young and rowdy and stupid enough to be more distracted by body humor and smooth thievery than anything impressive he could've done, and Richie looks at him with an expression of surprise that still somehow has a tinge of boredom to it.

"Good sport," Murphy praises with an commending nod, reaching out to shake his hand. Richie is visibly a child of class and etiquette luncheons, and returns it instinctively. Murphy hooks his thumb over the top of the ring, and holds Richie's eye, keeps him talking. "You guys from the city?"

"Yeah," he answers, gruff and clipped. "Come out here to fuck around."

"Cool, cool," Murphy responds entirely ironically, but in that neutral tone they share which prompts no suspicion. He pulls Richie in for one of those casual, masculine hugs that men share with uncles, fathers, brothers, and overly-friendly street magicians, their hands in a tight grip between their chests as he claps him on the back and pushes himself away, shaking his hand hard enough to wriggle the ring past Richie's knuckle and into his palm. He goes to pocket it while he picks up his ticket stub and Richie saunters over to his still-cackling friends, but there is no pocket.

There's no pocket, because he isn't in the kingdom, and he isn't stealing a wallet off a stupid businessman, and these are Bellamy's pants. These are Bellamy's pants, he's in an alley in the I.C., and he's stealing a priceless heirloom from a group of drunk, ruffian Mages and Ringfighters, severely outnumbered and outweighed.

The ring tinkles to the concrete, and ten seconds of thick, stiff silence passes before his eyes cut to black and the sound of skin hitting pavement scorches his ears. They're on him like a wake of vultures, these classic, oh-so-typical sadistic rich kids have been looking for a fight since they left their fucking mansions this morning, adrenaline junkies, and Murphy knows it, how couldn't he when a maelstrom of assaults is coming down on him and he can barely think to do anything but lie there and take it?

"Fucking prick," hisses Richie while he's down. Murphy blinks the spots from his eyes and watches the tall man hunch over to slip his ring back on. He crouches down close to where Murphy's sprawled out on the ground, propping himself up on his elbows and trying to find solid ground under his body. Richie shows his ring off, moving the green gemstone around so it glitters in front of Murphy's eyes. "You like this?" he asks, and then socks Murphy in the mouth with it.

A searing, urgent heat, and Murphy watches the blood dribble from his lips and teeth onto his pants, Bellamy's pants. They'll be dirty, he thinks deliriously. That's no good. He's going to have to get up and punch him in the face now, thanks to that.

"Oh, tough guy!" one of the halfwits exclaims as he wobbles to his feet, and Murphy ignores him, fighting to stay upright. He should run, he knows he should run. But he's Murphy.

He's John fucking Murphy.

He throws a punch, and it's a good, solid punch that rocks Richie's head back and makes a satisfying crunch. Murphy smiles and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, bloody and nasty, then they're on him again.

Suspenders is a Fumusmage, and the last thing Murphy sees before his skull cracks back under the heel of a boot is black smoke rushing from his open mouth. It swarms Murphy, chokes him, blinds him. He writhes in the dark and gets ahold of a leg, yanking it towards him until someone hits the ground hard and cries out. Murphy wastes no time using the leg to prop himself up, stomps on their knee as he launches himself out of the smoke. The scream follows him, he's broken something. Good.

Tweedledee gets a hold of Murphy's hair with his fist, laughs, breath hot in his face, and steps to the side to fling him forward, sending hard chunks of flying cinderblock smashing into his gut, crumbling around him as Murphy groans and falls to his knees under the impact.

"You're all bark, no bite," Richie murmurs, circling him like he's prey. "Isn't that right?" He grabs Murphy by his collar like he's a dog and jerks him onto all fours, keeps that hand there while he slams his boot into Murphy's ribs. He goes down, eyes tightening closed as the coal smoke creeps towards him again, the Fumusmage on his stomach in the alley, dragging a broken leg and exhaling it out of his nose, his mouth, his eyes. Murphy breathes hard, a stitch in his side and heart pounding, lungs pumping, body in overdrive. His lip is leaking blood that he smears across his chin. His ribs ache, he can't feel his face.

He feels fucking _good_.

"Lot of talk up there earlier, not much to say now?" Richie asks, kicking Murphy again and rolling him onto his back. Murphy lets him, hanging his arms by his sides until Richie leans closer, closer, minty breath right in Murphy's face... He spits blood into his eye, yanks Richie by the collar and uses the weight to switch places with him, hunched over as his minions launch into action again and start firing, smoke closing in around Murphy as the Fumus moves faster, works harder, the twins cracking rocks against his sides, his back, his face. He grins down at Richie.

"You want me to bite?" he says, and slams the man's back into the concrete. Richie doesn't even yelp, blood running cold as he stares into Murphy's eyes, alight with pure elation. Murphy wonders in the back of his mind if he's ever been pinned in his shiny, perfect little life, grabs him by the hand with the ring on it and listens to Richie scream as he clamps his teeth down on four long fingers, hears the skin tear, the blood bubble out and race down Richie's arm. _"I'll bite."_

His moment to revel in a dirty victory is cut short by the sudden absence of his own breath. Black smoke has taken advantage of his open mouth and winds down into his throat, curling up in his lungs like a snake. He locks up, choking and feeling like his eyes might pop out of their sockets. A sharp rock cracks against his cheekbone and slices into his skin, the sole of a boot pounds against his shoulder blade hard enough to keep it from sitting right in Murphy's back. He can't see anything, anything but black. He's on the ground again, his advantage short-lived. The hits don't stop, he's suffocating, he doesn't remember what it was like to breathe. He should be unconscious, he wishes he was unconscious. The slams and the cracks keep coming and he can't get purchase on anything, limbs moving slower without oxygen. He tries to grab hold of the wall to ground himself, and his wrist is stomped hard enough to make tears spring to his eyes. There isn't coming back from this one. He can't fight them off if he can't see, if he can't breathe, and if they don't stop soon, Murphy thinks, hysterically, that he's going to die.

He's going to die. In this alley, alone, with nothing. For something as stupid as wearing the wrong pants. For something as stupid as trying to get a ring for the boy he likes. He's going to die. He's going to die. He's going to-

"Hey, you boys!" someone yells. "What the hell d'ya think you're doing?!"

The smoke shrinks from his lungs and his head, slipping out like it was pulled and hissing as it leaves him. Murphy gasps, black wisps receding from his eyes, but it isn't enough. He slumps over, feels the concrete come up to meet him, and thinks, deliriously, "Forgot the ring."

Then it's all black.

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

 

When he comes to, the sky's a dark navy glittering with stars and a deep, nauseatingly savory smell invades his senses. He hisses at the sudden assault of pain from every place in his body and glances down, every little movement some new kind of ache, burn, pinch. Next to him is a foam box, a bottle of water, and a little note on yellow paper written in crude scrawl.

_"Sorry, staff had to go home for the night. Hope you're alright. Courtesy of The Ick."_   Murphy looks at the door that the four guys came out of earlier that day, a rusting green sign reading, sure enough, The Ick. Murphy's heard of better marketing tactics than naming bars after words meant for disgust and leaving half-dead people outside your building, but he isn't one to complain about free food.

He opens the box and maneuvers his hand slowly, inspecting the deep blue bruises blossoming over his knuckles as he lifts fry after greasy fry to his mouth. A very brave rat scurries up and Murphy hunches protectively around his box, but the longer the rat stares at him, looking a little worse for wear in terms of rat beauty standards, Murphy sighs. He fishes out a particular fry that doesn't look very good and flings it away from him, and the rat chases it into the shadows. His arm aches when he brings it back down, drawing a groan out from behind his teeth.

He chews, looking off into the empty slate street, noticing the absence of lights in windows, and wonders how late, or how early, it is that even the bars are closed. He wonders where these people go off to at night, where they go home to. Are they deserters? Did they build houses in the forest, do they run businesses during the day and take shelter in caves at night? Maybe they're from the cities. He guesses most of them probably are; just rich folks from the urban cities looking to make money off of people who can't get their supplies anywhere else.

He stares at the rest of his fries for a while, and then remembers that Raven quite likes fries. He closes up the box, takes a soothing swig of water, and then another, and then another until he's gulping it down, and when half of the bottle's gone he climbs to his feet. He wobbles, steadies himself on the wall until he can see straight, and then starts on his merry way.

He has trouble hitchhiking, sticking his thumb out for carriages, horses, mules, vans and cars that ride past full of gentlefolks looking at him like a maniac who'd just fought a bear for a box of fries.

He decides to take the scenic route, traversing the side of the road on foot. He hopes he makes it back to camp. He hopes one of these fries turns out to be a magic artifact. He hopes for a lot of things. He always does.

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

  
Murphy stares at the steep hill down into the dustbowl, frowning at his new foe. He's not sure he can hike down this thing without further abuse to his ribs. He thinks about rolling, decides that's a worse idea, and takes a tentative step. Then another, and then another, and as soon as he stops counting, that's the step that sends a searing bolt of pain up his sides. "Shit," he hisses, "shit, shit, shit," one for each hurried step. By the time he reaches the bottom of the dip he's whisper-screaming the word. He takes a moment to collect himself, breathing hard and wincing, pressing his mangled wrist to his side.

That's when Bellamy appears.

"Where the _hell_   have you-" he trails off midsentence, eyes sweeping over Murphy's pathetic form as the conman tries to give a cheeky smile, but ends up coughing, scrunching his face up into something unpleasant again.

"You ought to see the other guy," he says once he recovers, leaving his box of fries on the steps of the girls' caravan for Raven. He winces, clutching his stomach as he straightens up again.

"Old World Christ, Murphy," Bellamy whispers, and hurries to the beaten conman's side, hooking an arm around his waist, to which Murphy yelps uncoolly. Bellamy whispers furious apologies, placing his arm higher and pushing down on Murphy's shoulder blade, to which he cringes and lurches forward. Bellamy stops walking, eyes darting over Murphy's figure and finding nowhere safe to place his hands. "I don't know what I can touch," he says in the way of another apology, and Murphy sighs, eyes squeezed closed as he tries to carry himself to the caravan.

"My dick is fine," he says, and Bellamy glowers, turning a dark shade of red.

"If you didn't look like you'd fall apart I would have already punched you in your weaselly little goddamn face."

It's the most words he's ever heard in a sentence from Bellamy, and Murphy barks out a laugh that stings burns and rocks his world on its axis, but he steadies himself against the caravan and uses his uninjured arm to pull the rest of his body inside. Bellamy follows, hurrying in front to take a blanket from Jasper's hoard and stretch it over the bed. Murphy collapses on top of it, breathing out a sigh of relief even as his spine and shoulder blade protest the position. Bellamy tucks a pillow under Murphy's head, and then hovers for a moment.

Jasper and Monty don't stir on the floor, but Murphy knows that Jasper usually snores, knows they're lying there awake with their eyes shut, listening.

"I'll get Clarke," Bellamy says at last, and a hand shoots out to grab his wrist.

"Don't," Murphy murmurs, "please."

"Are you stupid?" Bellamy hisses, tearing away from Murphy. "You look like roadkill. I'm getting Clarke."

Murphy swallows, helpless as Bellamy leaves the van. He doesn't want Clarke. He doesn't want to drain her, not tonight. He takes and takes and takes and he'll have to take more and he doesn't want to owe them anything else.

He waits, stares at the ceiling until they come back. Clarke kneels over him and pulls her lip between her teeth when she sees the sorry state he's in, lips and browbone split, cheekbone busted open, hands and wrist bruised blue, blood dried in a thick line from a wound under his hair, the rest of the damage hidden by clothes. She draws energy from her very being, sweats and strains, soothing that soft, bright puddle of healing energy around his knuckles, his wrist. He sits up with her hands on his back and Bellamy lifts his arms until Murphy's eyes sting, takes the shirt off of him like he's broken. He hunches over and shivers while the Curi guides her palms over his back, coaxing every bone, every capillary back into place. When Clarke moves on past the fractures around his eye, his cheekbone, she starts to look pale, gray. When the healer presses her hands to his bare ribs in the dark silence, breathing harder, Murphy begins to cry. He cries while Bellamy washes the dried blood from his body. He cries while she runs her fingers through his hair with one hand and seals his wounds with the other. He cries for good people who take care of bad people, for good people who give and give and give and never realize they're being robbed. _You're so stupid_ , Murphy thinks while the curator caresses his face and smooths away his tears, assuming he's in pain. _Stupid stupid stupid._

When Clarke finishes she looks ashen, soaked in her own sweat, and says "It's okay," before her eyes roll back and she goes down. Bellamy pulls the covers up to her shoulders and smooths down her hair, does the same for Murphy while he shakes, fisting his hands in the sheets to keep from shuddering. Bellamy hovers, as he so often does, looking Murphy over for anything they missed. Murphy watches his solemn face.

"They took the money," he says.

Fear flashes across Bellamy's face, but he stamps it down. Murphy doesn't want to disappoint him, wishes he'd tell him it was all okay, that they had plenty more where that came from, that he didn't make a mistake. That he didn't just tank their entire operation out here, isn't about to drag all these people into irredeemable poverty just as they started to believe in making it. "I'm just glad you're okay," he says instead. "We'll talk about this in the morning."

Murphy's heart crumbles. "Okay," he lies. "Sure thing, Boss."

Bellamy hunkers down next to Jasper for the night. Murphy waits until they're all asleep.

The conman pulls his shoes on, grabs the charm bracelet from the bedside shelf. He doesn't look back at them when he opens the door just enough to slip through without it squeaking, doesn't look back at Bellamy when he shuts it behind him.

He walks out to the tents. Paper stars glitter quietly overhead, watching him as he takes a pocketknife from his boot and smashes a display case with the handle of it. The Golden Eye lies dull in its refined frame, looking rather unexceptional to Murphy albeit resting on a silver platter now. He hangs the amulet around his neck and feels like it's strangling him. It certainly isn't, but he takes it off and wraps the chain around his wrist instead anyway.

When he climbs up the hill, feels sand falling away in dust clouds under his feet, something's watching him. The shadow of an animal, a tree, something, someone. Murphy makes a snarling, horrible face at it just in case it needed a warning, stay back, stay away from this camp and these people.

His heart pounds so hard in his chest when he ascends the horizon that he thinks it's going to burst and then he's going to die.

The desert stretches out endlessly before him and he starts walking, following familiar caravan tire tracks, and hopes he'll find his way. Hopes they'll forgive him. Hopes aliens will abduct them and wipe their memories of him completely.

He hopes for a lot of things. He always does.

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡ 

Bellamy stirs awake with a sense of urgency down below, slipping his boots on and making for the door to relieve himself outside. He glances over at the bed, taking note of everyone, and finds a body missing. Murphy must be at the hole too.

Bellamy walks for a while, to that place they dug behind a scraggly little desert tree far from the caravans. There's no Murphy, and Bellamy's sluggish, tired brain scrolls through possibilities while he relieves himself. No Murphy, but there is a dark entity, some tall shadow way in the distance, nearer the camp than Bellamy. He's so exhausted he must be seeing spots.

When he makes his way back to the setup he notices something he didn't notice before: glass. Glass is strewn in glittering shards from the show entrance, multiplying in number the closer he gets to the fold. Bellamy creeps closer to investigate, suddenly warily, heart hammering in his chest now. "Hello?" he says, and throws back the curtains.

The display case is in jagged, gleaming pieces on the floor. The Golden Eye is gone.

And so is Murphy.

_You fucking idiot,_ the curator thinks, looking up at the paper cutouts twinkling overhead and swaying on their strings. Then there's a cloth smothering him, his mouth, his nose, and he struggles. 

Bellamy goes down silent under the stars.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿ 
> 
> [angst fans get into position. fluff fans put ur big boy underpants on]
> 
> [kudos & comments are Loved and Cherished. love u & thank u so so so so much for reading]


	5. the dragon's teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dragon's Teeth; the teeth of the dragon slain by Phoenician prince Cadmus, which, when planted, bore ferocious soldiers that fought until there was only one victor left alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MENTIONS OF VOMIT, BLOOD, AND GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE, SUICIDE, MURDER, AND ABUSE. {SPOILERS FOR THOSE CONCERNED ABOUT TRIGGERS: The suicide occurs in-battle by stab wound. The abuse is a single scene and occurs between siblings.} Some of the subject matter of this chapter is relatively dark and intense, but canon-typical. Read responsibly, love you!]
> 
> ☆ Copy and paste in new tab to set the mood: https://youtu.be/vp3iZdJzzgk ☆

Coming face to face with the castle recalls the feeling of having a fist curled in your shirt, being jerked up to the face of a tormentor and having their hot breath uppercut your nose. It's imposing, formidable, looming. And Murphy's walking into it like he pays rent.

 At the top of the hill the air sweeps across harsh and dry, so much so that Murphy can feel it on the exposed skin of his lips, from which he's been picking chapped, peeling skin, gritty with sand. It's not unlike the desert Murphy's trekked on foot, a night and a day, to land himself here; incomparable to that final stretch through the wet, impossibly dark tunnels, and through the humid streets of Castus, the kingdom he once called home.

The two royal guards at the entrance are stock-still and loyal as ever, like ice statues with flickering eyes, eyes that lock onto Murphy with red dashes as he ambles down the hill, listens to the scuff of his boots against the cobblestone turning red under his feet. The stretch is unbearably long with their stares on him, that insurmountable distance between you and the well-intentioned stranger holding the door for you from a mile away. When he's close enough that the guards can see the whites of his eyes, they exchange a meaningful look, and then descend on him.

"Woah, boys," Murphy attempts with his hands raised as they block his way, towering over him in all their clanging silver armor, glinting spears too close to the moneymaker for comfort. "There's plenty to go around."

After forgoing the expectation of a greeting or a shaking of hands, he had hoped for maybe a line of questioning, something cliché about the business which brings him here, but he is severely disappointed in that department as well. His optimistic mood takes a sour turn as they begin to frisk him, searching him for weapons, manhandling him by the jaw. The first guard rips his pocketknife from its cradle in his boot and confiscates it, while the other drags a thumb harshly against his neck as if he were trying to conceal something. "Unmarked," he surveys, voice deep and tone lowery as Murphy grits his teeth at the feeling of being inspected like this, touched so freely and handled like an animal. They grab him by the biceps and tow him forward, and the glamour Murphy had envisioned of kicking in the doors to the palace and sauntering in through the dust-- backlit by violet sun as the fog clears around him like a cloud of ashes, amulet swinging around his finger and the Queen praising a job well done, ordering that he's served a sum of one hundred deciescents on a golden dish-- goes a little more like him being thrown to his knees a mile from the throne and likely getting a nasty carpet burn to snapshot it.

The castle's interior, however, is exactly as Murphy, in all his hopes of grandeur and hypocritical manifesto to eat the rich, expected it.

The walls are stripped into ecclesiastical stained glass archways, blood-red glass dotted with golden accents of glinting swords, civic crowns and other artistically rendered blasphemies of past dynasties. A fire burns in a marble hearth to his right. Ornate candelabras flicker every ten feet in a way that whispers sultry elegance rather than fire hazard, despite all logic. An iron chandelier hangs close overhead, threatens to leak the blistering syrup of melting crimson candles onto those beneath its wheel. Cinnamon incense burns beside the lavish throne, embedded with jewels from past royalties albeit freshly painted a deep, haunting black. A throne which sits upon an oriental rug on a high platform, prompting it to loom over bowing subjects. It's the height of regality, whispers the most expensive kind of danger.

And the carpet is velvet, too.

"Jonathan Murphy," a strong, husky, yet feminine voice says, and it bounces from every wall, descends upon him from the ceiling, seeps into his blood from the floor. She says his name not unkindly, but in a way that echoes a predator playing with its food. "It's nice to finally have you here," she says, and doesn't seem to mean it at all. He knits his brows, confused and off-put. "Anything you'd like to share with me?"

He looks up from his knees, and she's there. Long, dark hair, pulled tightly against her scalp in some places by intricate braids. Ivory skin, strong, downturned brows, and that dark, dangerous glint in her emerald eyes. Her gown is heavy and slick, leather corset seeping into satin the color of night, clicking with the sounds of black jewelry and intricate little chains. She's young; so young that she lounges in her throne like it's the raggedy couch in her family home, practically debasing it the way she's kicked her legs over one of the highly-decorated armrests. Murphy supposes, though, that she could be doing headstands in it and not be reprimanded nor less imposing. She is the Queen, after all.

The Red Queen.

Murphy hates her, hates every inch of her and her ridiculous get-up and her fucking new wave Red Order policies, but he smiles his best pageant smile, and, like the show pony he's become, presents to her the amulet. "It's magic" he says, "I've seen it glow" he says, "it really works" he says, "I think it's something special" he says. The Queen at least has the decency to look intrigued, brow quirked as she crooks her finger, infuriatingly slowly. Murphy intends on rising, pulling himself from his knees onto his haunches, when he's knocked between the shoulder blades by the end of a spear, huffing as he lands back on his hands. Before he can collect the breath knocked from his lungs the amulet is snatched from his hands by a guard and delivered in middleman fashion to the Queen. "You treat all your guests this way or am I just special?" Murphy mutters, brushing his hands off and taking another whap to the back for his comment as she turns the charm over and over in her hands, swings it around, stares at it. Her face shifts from decidedly neutral to bored.

"Worthless," she says, and tosses it carelessly so that it skids to the floor at Murphy's feet. He winces as it hits the ground. "Surprise, surprise."

"Wait," Murphy protests, as the guards begin pulling him to a stand. He quickly collects the amulet and holds it up to her, suddenly desperate. This can't... this can't just all be for naught. "You need water--"

"John Murphy, you are under arrest for multiple accounts of fraud, theft under false pretenses, against the subjects of this kingdom," she begins, and the whole of Murphy's organs drop down to his stomach. His world falls off that topsy-turvy axis, sends everything he knows hurtling in every direction like bricks in a storm. "We appreciate your service to the kingdom in turning yourself in today, and for this reason you will be given a second chance."

Murphy would rather be brained on her candelabra collection. He would rather be skewered into a kebab by a spear right here on his knees. He intends to tell her so, searching her empty eyes as she watches him with a cocked head, but then there are hands on him, and he struggles, and all he can think to do is snatch the amulet from the floor and stuff it into his pocket as they chain him by the wrists, drag him, kicking and contorting, away.

He writhes in their grip out into the corridor, debates with himself on whether or not he should be fighting back harder all down the stone stairwell, and wonders how in the hell he's going to con his way out of this one as they wrestle him into some dungeon prison. They shackle him on a long chain to the wall, and he kicks up dust all around him like a million black flies, just as he had fantasized. "Come on, there's been a mistake!" he shouts, reaching out to keep the guard from shutting the cell door, but it slams shut hard enough to rattle his teeth. "No," he groans, pitching himself toward the door but being held tight by the straining chains, and he tugs against the iron ring embedded in the wall, pushing off from it with his feet until he's climbing it, letting the chains whip against the steel floor to play the remaining notes of his cacophonous racket, a composition of desperation. "Come on!" he roars, teeth bared as he jerks on the long line of black, interconnecting links, and rams himself into the wall in frustration. _"Fuck!"_

He kicks the wall one last time for good measure, and his attention snaps to a small rectangle in the wall, a little barred window allowing a sliver of rosy sunlight to melt and puddle in the barren cell. He rattles the bars, pushes, pulls, even slams his fist against one iron tube and succeeds only in bruising the side of his hand. "Shit! No, no no no no..."

"Come on, man," someone cuts him short, an exasperated voice that Murphy doesn't recognize. He looks over his shoulder and sees he has an audience, has been putting on quite the performance for the other prisoners. The one who spoke is shackled to a steel rod protruding from the floor in the center of the cell, unraveling a string from his shorts, glancing warily up at Murphy as if he regrets saying something. He's meek-looking, but carries some kind of carelessness on the back of that anxiety. His square spectacles are broken in places and rest crooked on his nose. There are only two others, a girl in a faded pink tank-top and white sandals crumpled in the corner, looking off at the wall across from her with puffy eyes, as if she's been crying, and a man sitting with his knees pulled to his chest, head resting on his arms so his face is hidden. His exposed arms are covered in reddened bandages, red roses blooming from patches of gauze over caramel skin and... freckles?

"Hey," Murphy says, voice cracking. Crying Girl eases her stare to him, but the man in the corner doesn't stir. "Hey!" he tries again, louder. "You in the corner," he presses. "Cavity Sam, let's see the mug on you."

"Shut _up_ Murphy."

The anger, the frustration-- it all dissipates at once, a warm breath in snow. It leaves the reanimated corpse of fear in its wake, and Murphy's gripped in its cold vise.

"Bellamy," he croaks, stepping forward with his hand out, some primal urge inside overwhelming him with the need to touch, to ensure that he's not experiencing some desert dehydration mirage, that his... something... isn't really here, diced up like kitchen ingredients in a Castus prison cell. He stops himself before he crosses that invisible mark on the steel floor, that dividing line halfway between acceptance and denial. "Bellamy, what--" he shakes his head, brows forming a deep crease between them, "what the hell are _you_ doing here?"

He picks his head up slowly, eyes hooded and dark with exhaustion. One of them is swollen and black, and shallow slices mar his complexion alongside a deep violet bruise traveling his jaw. Next to the Bellamy that Murphy knows, all honey glow and quirked-brow-grins, this man is nearly unrecognizable. "I could ask you the same question," he mutters, and then pushes his brows up in a mean, unfamiliar way. "Oh wait, let me guess: grand larceny?"

The version of the plan where Murphy only encountered his victims again while directing a silver limousine with six leather seats made this particular part seem exponentially more bearable. "I was gonna come back," he says pathetically, scuffing the floor with his boot. "Buy a house out nowhere, take you guys with me. I just didn't know if you..." Bellamy looks skeptical, although too tired to spare his energy for anger.

"Would let you rob us?" the man interrupts, blinking slowly, slow enough that one eye closes after the other. "Well, we did, didn't we?" and it's final, more of a concluding statement than a question. He lowers his head back to his arms.

Murphy slumps against the wall across from him, tracing a white scratch in the floor. "I was gonna come back," he repeats, almost too quiet to be heard. The other boy in the cell averts his worried stare, and Crying Girl watches him openly, cheeks ruddy and tears collecting before she drops her head into her hands and starts up again, choking on whimpers and wails.

Bellamy turns to lie on his side, back facing Murphy. There's no response.

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

It could've been minutes, hours, days. The door opens with a deep, billowing breath of cold air from the stone hall, and a man in leather armor and Red Order face paint enters with two metal trays balanced on his forearms. He surveys the room, and ignores Murphy as he begins to pitch forward, shouting, demanding a trial, a chance to speak to someone, anyone.

"You can't _do_ this!" he screams, chains straining against the pull as he lunges forward and falls hard on his thigh. "I didn't do anything!" The guard hands a meager-looking tray to the boy and places another one next to Crying Girl's trembling form. "You can't just-- you can't just kill people!" Murphy shouts, a low rumble disturbing the audibility of his arguments. Bellamy doesn't remove his face from his arms, but extends a hand without looking, in which the guard places a plate. He turns to Murphy with the last one, who practically snarls, teeth bared like a wild animal. He yanks himself toward the guard against his chains, pitching his shoulders forward even as his shackles hold his hands down at his waist. "Come on," he threatens, sneering. "You gotta feed me, don't you?"

The guard throws the tray at Murphy's feet, unentertained and expressionless. Murphy roars as he makes his way for the door. _"MURDERERS!"_   he screams, rattling his shackles like mad, hard enough that they sound like they might creak one last time and burst from the wall at any moment. "FUCKING _MURDERERS!"_   The door swings closed with a bang.

Murphy catches his breath, staring wide-eyed at the floor as his chest heaves. When he picks his head up, hair thrown wildly into his face, the others are sitting quietly, defeated. "Cowards," he hisses. "All of you, fucking cowards." The boy picks timidly at his food, and Crying Girl has ignored her meal altogether, still curled up faceless in the corner. Bellamy's hunched over his plate eating like he's alone at a dinner table, casual and blank-stared, seemingly uninterested in the happenings around him.

The tray at his feet is a smörgåsbord fit for a king: a plastic cup of water, two slices of wheat bread, and a paper container of red jelly. Murphy ignores the gnawing sensation in his stomach and hooks his toe under the tray, kicking it as hard as he can into the cell door. The other prisoners look up with a jolt, even Bellamy, as it clatters loudly against the steel and the water splashes over the walls, the ceiling and the floor. The jelly leaves a thick, chunky red smear over the little window in the door, and Murphy hopes with every ounce of him that it looks from the outside like he's brained someone in here. Water seeps into bread slices left abandoned on the floor and Murphy slumps down against the wall to watch it soak in, leak down the walls in rivulets. He chances a glance at Bellamy, who looks away from the mess with a raised brow and back to his food, resuming eating as if nothing had happened. No "Murphy, you need to eat," or "Murphy, calm down."

Nothing. As if they're strangers.

"I'm sorry," Murphy says, eyes burning. There's no response.

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Another minute, hour, day. It doesn't matter.

Two guards enter in lightweight, black armor, and Murphy, tired, sits like a gold-star prisoner. Good dog.

"Up," says one of them, and hefts the boy in the glasses to a stand. They unlock his shackles from the floor but replace them with metal cuffs and guide him out of the room. He looks over his shoulder, frantic, heels digging into the ground. The guards shove him forward and Murphy hears a strangled noise, something like an involuntary squeak, a shard of a yell. The other guard says nothing, and Bellamy clambers into a stand. They unlock his shackles wordlessly. Murphy jerks forward.

"Hey," he says weakly, as the guard cuffs Bellamy. "Hey! What the hell's going on?!" Bellamy clenches his jaw, facing forward as he walks on his own to the door, the guard following.

"Wait, wait a second--!" Murphy calls out, scrabbling up from the floor and tugging forward. "Where's he going?!"

The door closes sharply. Murphy stares at it, eyes wide as saucers as his hands start to shake.

Crying Girl bursts into tears.

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The corridor is the darkest room in the castle. An iron sconce flickers over either doorway as voices, a million voices, ebb and flow like waves through the black stone walls.

"Stop your sulking," the advisor says, hands wrapped loosely around an ornate spear. "You're luckier than you know."

Bellamy flicks his stare up to the woman: ebony skin swirling with elaborate ink and heavy scarring, hair kept short and military, eyes a deep, intense kind of brown. She's an imposing figure indeed, red leather trimmed in gold accents, a short black cape reaching to the small of her back. She stands rooted in that place between young and eternal, face etched with wisdom and age but alight with a youthful, fighting fire. He thinks he'd quite like her if it weren't for her being on the rooting side for his death, so he doesn't spit at her shoes, nor does he grace her with any kindness.

"Oh yeah?" he mutters. "What tipped you off? The imprisonment or the unending sacrificial gladiator fighting?"

She peers out of the window in the door and then looks back to him, where he's hunched over on the long, wooden bench in the middle of the narrow space. He can hardly think what with all the rumbling voices seeping through the walls. A fist bangs on the door to summon him and leaves its haunting echo spinning around the room, and Bellamy stuffs down the immediate bloom of nausea, blood rushing to his head and starting a riot that reverberates and pounds in his ears as he's ushered toward the door.

"You can't lose, _dearly beloved,"_ she whispers, mocking someone, and without time to question that he's pitched through the doorway by rough hands. That's when the sound hits him. It isn't a new sensation, but it fills his chest every time, up to his mouth, his nose, his eyes, like he's drowning. The crowd roars as the gates creep up, hatched wooden gates that creak and rattle as they're lifted up over the rounded, tubular entrance to the epicenter of the arena.

The Ring.

"Brau Mortecrest, cultivation and distribution of dangerous and illegal substances," that throaty but distinctly-female voice announces, sounding calm, unaffected while overlooking the deep, dark splash of stains in the pale dirt. The crowd heckles and boos, rattling the fence from high above the arena. Brau, the thin boy from the cell, is frozen in the hold of the guards opposite Bellamy. Through the squares in the rising gate, Bellamy can see the whites of his eyes. He's just a kid.

"And our returning champion, Bellamy Blake," she calls, tongue rolling over the name strangely, slowly, drawn out. _"Murder."_

The audience erupts into roars and screams, kicking the fence, beating it, bellowing for his death.

"Welcome to your second chance," the Queen nearly sing-songs when the noise fades into a quiet buzz of anticipation, pacing in front of her throne. "Be the last."

The gates click, a Canetimage opens her mouth impossibly, gapingly wide from behind the throne and mimics the sound of gunfire. ** _CRACK!_   **The crowd explodes.

And then it's on.

Bellamy snatches a hefty sword from the table, the one with a sturdy, practical, steel handle. He weighs it in his hands, flips it around to keep the sweat off as he steps out into the arena and the sound of the audience picks up again. The boy, Brau, is frantically running his hands over his weapons table inside of the tunnel. A guard snaps something at him and he jumps, dropping his hand on the handle of a mace in a panic and fumbling with it. Bellamy winces. Bad choice.

Brau creeps out, hugging the edge of the arena and testing the weight of the mace, swinging it around on its chain a couple of times in a way that might look threatening on anyone else but mirrors a little dog with a chew toy on Brau.

He watches Bellamy for a minute, who doesn't approach, just turns his body as Brau circles him from afar. The crowd picks up heckling again, thirsting for action, for blood. The Queen knocks her staff against the floor and the Canetimage amplifies the sound. _"FIGHT!"_   she orders.

Bellamy clenches his jaw, watching Brau, whose face changes at the command. He breathes hard, shakes his head, and then charges, screaming. It isn't a war cry, it's just... a cry. How is he meant to fight a kid whose power move is _wailing?_

Bellamy dips away as Brau swings, hard, and doesn't spin off his own heels like his opponent had expected. He actually seems to have substantial upper-body strength on him, and lean muscle ripples as he swings down toward Bellamy again and again in the sharp shape of an 'X'. He isn't landing any hits, but he's cornering Bellamy, backing him into a wall. When they're close, too close, the mace clips Bellamy on the arm and a thick spikes licks his skin and whips him sideways. Bellamy bites down a scream and groans through his teeth, flexing involuntarily and only serving to exacerbate the blood flow. The short gash pulses, a deep crimson fountaining out onto his clothes in a way that appears to dizzy his opponent, a nauseating special effect. Brau stares at his damage, and then covers his mouth, turning green. Bellamy uses the opportunity to slash miserably at Brau, wincing as the kid screams at a matching slice along his arm. Bellamy backs off, letting him collect himself, and when he does Brau charges again, attempting to uppercut Bellamy as if to catch a spike on his chin and decapitate him. The swing narrowly misses, and Bellamy, heart pounding in his throat, retaliates, cutting a wide horizontal arc through the air with his sword which draws a neat, shallow line across Brau's abdomen. Brau screams something ragged and blood-curdling and falls to his knees, and Bellamy feels like passing out, looking up to the bright fluorescents overhead and swallowing vomit. It wasn't deep enough to kill but is likely the worst pain the young man has ever felt, and Bellamy is left without a clue in the world how to end this. He has a family, but so does this kid. This kid crying into the dirt at Bellamy's feet.

Yesterday's opponent was a barbarian of a man, charged with domestic violence and intent on snapping Bellamy's spine in half. Bellamy had little qualms about sticking a sword in the guy if it meant returning to his crew, but then... he didn't go anywhere. They dragged him right back to that cell.

_"You can't lose, dearly beloved."_

He stares at a loss for a decision as the kid's trembling hand reaches out for his abandoned mace again. Bellamy could plunge his weapon into the boy's back right here, right now, but if they won't let him go home either way--

Brau's blood suddenly floods out from the shallow slice in a thick tidal wave, pumping as if pulled from him. He makes stricken, gurgling, sickening noises as he collapses in the quickly spreading puddle, and the crowd erupts into rabid screams. Bellamy hunches over and wretches onto his shoes. It's disturbing, abnormal, and he can't draw his eyes away from it as it keeps spreading and spreading, impossibly far, soaking into the pale ground. It isn't natural. It's... like magic.

The Canetimage snaps her jaw open and impersonates the thick, haunting sound of a war horn. The crowd, having been rooting for the boy dead in the dirt with a puddle of darkness around him, boos ferociously, rattling the fence and chanting something unintelligible. Bellamy feels a sensation far past sick. He feels angry, and then he feels empty, watching the body bleed out from a wound that he carved. He wipes vomit from his mouth with the back of his hand and turns to stare up at the Queen in her dark throne. She's looking already with a twisted, strained expression and four fingers raised on her armrest, and then averts her stare and flattens her hand when caught, steeling her face into something indifferent and cold.

The blood stops spreading.

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_"Better to be the hireling of a stranger," he reads, finger following along the path of the words. His sister shifts anxiously next to him, burrowing closer into his side as the voices from above grow louder, fiercer. Something beats the dinner table, a fist, and he combs his fingers through her slick, dark hair._

_They are young, so very young. Eleven-- Bellamy Blake, son of Lux Naturalis leaders Aurora and Otto, careful, funny, smart as a whip-- and six, his baby sister, inquisitive, imaginative, and Bellamy's favorite magic artifact._

_The little Mage was something unexpected, what with a generational gap between her and Bellamy's grandmother, the last Mage in the family. One can imagine the shock of the doctor whose hand she wrenched away from her body at birth, guiding his very blood with her eyes, just enough that his gloved hand spasmed and lost control of her._ One of the strongest Sanguimages this kingdom's ever seen, _they said._ So much potential, _they said._

What a sweet little girl, _they said._

_A rebel above the pocket in the floor stomps to punctuate his argument, and the pair of siblings cringes as dust flutters down in tiny orbs onto their noses and scrunched eyes. "We'll have an opening in the B route! I'm starting to think you people will find any excuse to prolong this further."_

_"We're already stretched thin for this operation. You find us someone willing so we can carry out the rest of the plan without sacrificing manpower on any of the routes and your tactless scheme is a go, Cyprus. All in agreement?"_

_"Aye," rings out a muffled chorus. Another bang on the table and a screech of a chair against the hardwood._

_His sister captures his attention again, pointing to the yellowed page. "And serve a man of mean est-... estate whose living is but small..." he whispers, tripping over unfamiliar words, wincing as someone's shoved against the wall._

_"We are not fucking children," a familiar male voice snaps. Their father. "We have been meticulously piecing together this operation for ten years. If it takes one more, so be it. But we aren't rushing this, so you can tuck your fucking tail and sit down with us or you can walk into that castle to take God's royal pain in the ass out on your own. It's your goddamn funeral, Cy."_

_A chair screeches toward the center of the room, back under the table where it belongs, and the foggy voices resume at a tolerable volume. Bellamy's satisfied with this conclusion, although his sister looks up with those curious green eyes, round as marbles. "Tuck your fu-?" he covers her mouth and shakes his head. No repeating Dad. Grown-up words._

_He looks back down to their book, pointing so she can follow along. He's distantly aware of his best friend's sleepy smile against his shoulder as she wraps a little arm around his stomach. "Than be the ruler over all these dead and gone.”_

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He can't taste it, watching the unmoving door and waiting for something, anything. His fingers tremble as he picks spongy pieces from the bread he maltreated earlier, soaked in water and dirt from the floor. Crying Girl is watching him with her red, puffy eyes, and her face droops from exhaustion and misery so much so that Murphy can't tell whether she's disgusted by him or in awe of him, but she watches him, and he watches the door.

When it finally unlatches, it could have been minutes. Hours. Days. It's dark now, and one dull, sickly orange bulb has ticked alive to douse the room in a shallow gloom. Murphy isn't sure what he expects, maybe Bellamy's carcass to be dragged in by the legs and abandoned in the corner, but he averts his eyes to the floor as two bodies enter and one leaves. Only, four had gone out the first time around. Murphy isn't very good at math, but he hopes, twistedly and with all his beating heart, that the mousy boy will be the one missing when he finds the courage to look up.

He is.

"Bellamy," Murphy breathes out like a prayer, coming closer as the guard shuts the door behind him and leaves Bellamy slumped against the wall, shackled again in his cobwebbed nook. There's a spiral of bloodied gauze wound around his forearm, but otherwise he appears no different than the sorry state he was in before. "Is he...?" Murphy starts quietly, looking over to where the boy had sat like a centerpiece in the room.

Bellamy resumes his position, lying on his side with his back to everyone else. Murphy, desperate to have some fucking grasp on what's going on, chances a hand on Bellamy's shoulder. He's shrugged off almost viciously, and Bellamy's beaten form, suddenly, begins trembling. Murphy hovers, and then helplessly rests against the wall at Bellamy's side, hands between his legs.

Minutes, hours, days. Bellamy isn't breathing like someone's who's sleeping. It's the stuttered, heavy rise and fall of someone with a fist in their mouth and tears in their eyes. So Murphy talks.

"Every kinetipicture they ever made," he murmurs, and Bellamy's harsh breathing stills for a moment, listening: a wordless ' _what?'_

"An art studio for Clarke, a garage for Raven: motorbikes, cars, anything with gears in it," he says, quieter still. "Maybe a trampoline for Goggles' hyperactive ass. Game room, something stupid like that. I don't know what Harper would want. A bar, maybe. We could go to the store, some uppity fucks' store with expensive wines and cheeses and shit and just buy it all. A garden for Monty, science lab next to it or whatever nerd crap he wants. Biggest garden on the planet. Apples, oranges, watermelons, tomatoes. Beans. Everything. Like that one in the, uh, that old God book, the Bible--"

"Eden," Crying Girl says, watching him with her cheek rested against her arms folded over her knees, looking... substantially less bound to fall apart.

"Uh, yeah," Murphy agrees. "Eden."

Some time passes of silence, and Murphy watches a moth flit around the orange bulb, kissing it periodically as its wings brush against it and make a soft little tinkling noise.

"I was gonna come back," he whispers to no one in particular, assuming they've both fallen asleep. "With this expensive car, one of those things from the urban cities, seven-seater. Take everyone with me. We were gonna move out into this house; I guess- I guess I'd have someone build it. Or maybe we could build it, you know, however we wanted it. Unless that's hard. I don't know, I've- I've never built a house before," he stumbles, picking at a hole in the ankle of his pants. "A mansion. At least six rooms, maybe more, I don't know. You pick up a lot of strays. We could have more. Pool shaped like a big... like a big star. We'd be out in- in nowhere. And nobody would ever bother us out there."

Bellamy breathes steadily, and Murphy watches the way his shoulders rise with his chest, watches his back move under his bloodied shirt. Murphy's eyelids droop, and his head sinks down onto his arms crossed over his knees. He murmurs through a yawn into the space between his knees and his chest, breath warm on his own face, "And... there'd be velvet... velvet carpet..."

"Velvet carpet?" a hoarse voice echoes, and Murphy's exhausted brain doesn't register the source, the victory.

"Velvet carpet..." he says again, voice trailing away, fading into nothingness at the onslaught of sleep. "So our feet would always... be... warm."

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_"But it is only what happens, when they die, to all mortals," he reads. His sister tilts her head up to him and opens her mouth a few times, thinking. Bellamy waits for the question to form, a question that would never come._

_"So, if we're all in agreement, Etch and Mack are tasked with neutralization along D Route now," says their father's voice from above the floor. "And Aurora and I will instead be moving to-"_

**BANG!** _What can only be the Blake's house's front door slams against the edge of the kitchenette counter, and voices, familiar and new, the new commanding and much too loud, attempt to overpower one another in a sudden eruption of argument and panic._

_"Don't try it," a dangerous, gravelly voice snaps over the building tension. "We're shutting this operation down."_

_And all hell breaks loose._

_There's a crash and a scramble._ _"SPLIT!" a woman's voice directs, and then chokes off. It's Marguerite from across the street. Glasses and windows break, furniture smashes under boots and weapons. The rebels call out to one another, guards give directions, flip mattresses. Bellamy and his sister close their eyes with each thump, blinking hard at one another._

_After a cupboard is swept of its contents which shatter along the counter and floor as if a rebel would be attempting to hide in the fine china, his sister tries to sit on her haunches, eyes impossibly large and moistening with panicked confusion. Bellamy yanks her down by the back of her purple pajamas and claps a hand over her mouth, shaking. "And once the spirit--." He trembles, eyes switching from his book to his sister to the dust coming down in billowing clouds, breath sticking in his throat as he attempts to whisper. "Has let the white bones--."_

_"OTTO!" their mother's voice screams, something piercing and distressed, unlike anything her children have ever heard from her._

_"Don't you fucking touch her!" their father answers from another side of the little house, ripping through the distance, animalistic._

_His sister's eyes seem to bulge in their sockets as she wrestles against Bellamy's arm. He holds her tighter, presses his palm against her mouth harder. "All the rest," he whispers, pronunciation erring on incomprehensible as he shudders something violent, stammers as his eyes dart around the dark emptiness of the hole under the floor, "of the body..."_

_A shove, a crash, a struggle. A piercing noise, the running faucet of thick liquid and a deep groan. A woman's earth-shattering scream of their father's name. "Holy shit," hisses an unfamiliar voice after the nothingness has stretched on, marred by the wails and lamentations of a widow._

_"He attacked me," answers another, beside the sound of metal slotting out from something slick. "Move out."_

_His sister is red in the face, grappling at his hand with tiny fingers, thrashing silently. "Is made subject to the-the-the," he whispers, hiccupping, tears spilling over, running down his full cheeks and splashing onto the page. "The fire's strong f-fury."_

_The door creaks closed and leaves silence alone inside._

_Minutes, hours, days._

_He peels his white-knuckled hand from her mouth, shuddering, crying openly, as the little girl in the purple pajamas pushes against the floorboard to no avail, screaming out for her mother._

_"But the soul f-fli-flitters out like a dream," he whispers under her anguish like he always will, in a breath that empties his chest all at once and leaves him gasping.  "And flies away."_

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When Murphy wakes it's with a groan, rolling over onto his aching back and listening for the clicks and cracks of his bones. A beam of cold sun, blue with morning, reaches like a limb from window to wall and melts down onto the floor. He orients himself, belatedly disturbed by the coldness of the floor, the feeling of chalky dust clinging to his hands as his fingers search for the sheets of the caravan bed. Right, he's in the dungeon waiting lobby for his public euthanization. Forgot.

There is still only the three of them, he notes, Bellamy's nose and mouth hidden by a tin cup and Crying Girl actually eating, picking slowly with a little white spoon at a plastic container of frozen peach sludge. She's trapped the cup between her knees, and Murphy notices for the first time that her palms are wrapped in electrical tape, her wrists bound together to keep her from peeling it off so she can use her magic to escape or abuse the guards. She aims her spoon at an awkward angle between her fingers toward the cup, accidentally flicking chunks of peach up and across the room when it sticks, other times managing a bite or two.

A nudge against his boot interrupts his focus on her. Bellamy's sitting rather close, and has inconspicuously pushed a meager-looking tray of breakfast toward him. Murphy stares at it for a moment, frozen peaches ground into little icy globs, a cup of water, and a shallow bowl of some kind of brown oatmeal. "Eat," Bellamy demands. Murphy, in some kind of guilt-prompted knee-jerk response, some kind of childish desire to please a loved one, has never obeyed an order faster. Bellamy watches him from time to time, tracing the wet rim of his empty cup with a finger, as Murphy eats his meal like it's his last. And it very well may be. The thought makes him feel sick, and he slows down, stirring the remnants of his oatmeal, which tastes spectacularly like nothing. "All of it," the other man insists. Murphy finishes the bowl with his hand covering his mouth between spoonfuls to keep it down, glances up briefly to see Bellamy watching him with a quirked brow, something like concern in his expression. Something familiar.

Finally, Murphy thinks. All it took was nearly vomiting on his shoes.

Speaking of which, Bellamy's rank smell coming back the night before did not go unnoticed, and at some point in the morning he'd removed his shirt and boots, dragged them through the puddle of water left on the floor by Murphy, and laid them out to dry off in the corner. They'll still reek, but perhaps less so. The puddle on the floor is a brownish, sewer water kind of color, swirling with the remnants of thick blood and vomit from whatever Bellamy endured the day before. If it had been the Ring, he would be free right now. Murphy, somewhere in the back of his brain, concludes that he's being tortured. The possible reason for that kind of punishment, however, is so far from anything Murphy can fathom about the curator that he puts it out of mind.

"I never thought I'd say this," Murphy murmurs, stirring the peaches around, "but I miss Monty's beans."

Bellamy looks at him for a moment, and then ducks his head to hide an involuntary, unwanted little smile, shaking his head. Murphy, making a painstaking and valiant effort to not stare at his bare chest, grins like he's won something fantastic, some grand prize of battle. The expression fades as Bellamy picks his head up again without a smile and searches the conman's eyes, unspeaking.

"Why didn't you just ask?" he says quietly. Murphy appears as if struck, halting the stirring motion of his hand, looking guiltily down into the orange muck.

"Ask...?" Murphy parakeets uselessly, knowingly. Bellamy sighs, half-focused on watching Crying Girl's pitiful attempts at eating.

"The amulet! Why didn't you just ask for it back?" he snaps. "You made them trust the show, made them believe things were gonna get better. You made them trust _you_ ," he accuses, fists curling where they rest over his knees. Murphy tries not to linger on the absence of 'us', sitting there like a dunce, at a loss for words. A conman is a conman for a reason. He's never... he's never asked for anything. Not in his life. You don't ask for things when all you ever get is a shit lollipop and an expectation to lick it.

The silence stretches on. Crying Girl is watching them out of the corner of her swollen eyes, mouthing her spoon absently.

"Was all of it..." the curator starts hoarsely, scratching his arm, and clears his throat. "Was it all just an act?"

"No!" blurts Murphy, staring him down with blue eyes as big as planets. "No. Not me and them. Not... not me and you."

The curator watches Murphy's face like he's the serpent under the flower, expression dark and face blooming with anger, humiliation, and deep down, in some sick, stupid, masochistic part of him: affection. 

"I- I care. About you."

It's the closest Murphy will ever get to waxing poetic, declaring love from a white balcony.

Bellamy searches his eyes, pupils darting side to side for far too long before he drops his head to his hands and laughs. It's hollow and echoes through the cell. "I don't even know if you're telling the truth right now."

Murphy opens his mouth to... do something, protest, maybe, when the door unlatches. The room goes cold.

"Up," says a guard in red paint, grabbing Crying Girl by the elbow and unshackling her ankle from the wall, but leaving her hands bound. She goes deadweight, sinking to the floor as she begins to blubber again, fat tears spilling from her eyes as she whimpers and kicks at the guard's ankles, scrambles and anchors herself into the corner like a rodent. It is, Murphy thinks, quite exactly like watching an animal fight for its life.

Bellamy gives Murphy one last, fleeting glance, gaze sweeping over him and lingering on his eyes, before he draws himself to a stand, walks to the corner and begins to dress himself in his damp shirt and shoes. The second guard remains by the door, watching him, while the first guard contrastingly yanks Crying Girl to a stand, one fist in her hair and the other on her elbow. She screams as they push her out into the hall, and the sound needles into Murphy's very being. Her removal recalls cattle being dragged confused and desperate to the slaughter, while Bellamy's is the callous, empty-eyed walk of a traitor off of a plank.

Murphy keeps his eyes on an upturned cup of peaches in the corner, splattered across the floor, trying with a rolling stomach to tune out Crying Girl's screams until the door rattles shut and blankets him in otherworldly silence.

And then he's alone.

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Lights. Cage rattles. Crowd screams. Sword is heavy in his hands. Palms sweat. He's having trouble hanging onto the falchion.

Booming, thick voice. "Rosie Higgins, theft."

Her hands are free. She stares at them, switching a thin rapier between them as the gate falls to the ground behind her and pierces the pale dirt.

"Bellamy Blake, returning champion." The Crying Girl, Rosie, looks up, meets his eyes. "Murder."

"Welcome to your second chance" the Queen says, and the Canetimage acts as her sound system, dark maw unhinged to boom over the chattering crowd. "Be the last."

Gunfire.

Bellamy feels sick just looking at her, as she begins to cry again. She walks forward, straight towards him, unlike Brau's careful circling. He steps back, startled, as she comes close enough that he can see the tears dripping from her chin and the point of her softly-curved nose, the 'M' shaped slash of ink on her neck.

"I can't do this," he says. She comes to a stop inches in front of him, having dragged a line toward him in the dirt with the rapier. They ignore the heckling of the crowd, the demands that they fight, and her hazel eyes are bloodshot and wild, tears clinging to her lashes.

"That's okay," she says, as if it doesn't matter, and her voice is soft and broken. "You don't have to."

Bellamy frowns, heart pounding. "What?"

"He loves you, just so you know," she adds, and then closes her eyes tight, bracing herself for something.

"He-?" he starts, and chokes off as blood dribbles over Rosie's lips. She falls forward and he steps away, eyes wide. When she slumps over, the sharp tip of the rapier is sticking out from her back, coated in deep red. The crowd falls silent as the victory horn sounds.

She's killed herself.

Bellamy stares, and he stares, and when he's done staring, he turns. Looks up at the Queen overhead. She's sat on her throne looking far too comfortable, warning the Canetimage before she announces the victor.

Bellamy reels back and throws his sword so it clatters against the fence in front of her face and she jerks back, startled. He screams, something ragged and horrible that stuns everyone in the audience. _"FUCK THIS!"_   he roars, tears springing to his eyes as Rosie bleeds out at his feet. _"I'M DONE!"_

The Red Queen stares at him for a moment with an uncharacteristic expression, something sickened and afraid. Her eyes shine even from the pit below, but she steels herself, flicks her wrist at the guards down by the gates. They approach Bellamy on her command, who fights, kicking, screaming as they use the blunt ends of their spears against him until he's hunched over on the ground, crying, arms being wrenched behind his back and clicked into metal cuffs. _"KILL ME!"_   he laments, resisting even as they shove him into the arching stone tunnel that leads back to the corridor. He grinds his teeth, thrashing, chest heaving as he throws hair into his eyes and mouth, arches his back against the arms of the guards behind him and tries to dig his heels into the ground with stupid, hysterical, desperate determination. _"Kill me!"_   he grounds out, and it echoes off of the stone a thousand times. _"Kill me. Kill me, kill me, kill me."_

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_"They'll expect people to sneak in at night," she says, twirling a pen in her free hand. He smooths his thumb over her knuckles on the other, brows knitted as he scans the map unfolded across the kitchen table._

_"We need that cover to get in, no matter how fast you are- and you are, I promise- we can't draw any weapons in broad daylight without those guards taking us down. How many dynasties have been overthrown at brunch?"_

_Bellamy pauses, pencil stilling in his hand as he watches the two of them out of the corner of his eye through the slit in his bedroom doorway._

_"Maybe we'll be the first," his sister says cheerily, and her boyfriend's low chuckle rumbles through the floor and straight into Bellamy's chest._

_The pencil snaps in his hand. Before he can think about what he's doing, the consequences of an outburst like this, he shoulders through the door and snatches the map off of the table, crumpling it in his hands. His teenage sister jumps up from her chair and knocks it over onto its back, wrestling the wrinkled map out of his hands and shoving him into the kitchen counter. It bites against the base of his spine and he hisses through his teeth._

_"Bellamy!" she shouts, hurrying to smooth it out. "We need that!"_

_"I don't care," he snaps. "I thought we agreed to let go of the stupid coup idea." She looks between him and her boyfriend, who's sat silently at the table with a wary expression on his face._

_"Well, maybe you gave up," she says, "but Lincoln and I-"_

_"'Lincoln and I' nothing!" he yells, spitting mad. "It's too dangerous, O! Forget it."_

_She searches his eyes angrily, a challenge burning in her stare. "You think Mom and Dad died so we could sit around on our asses, sucking our thumbs?" she spits. "Why don't you go be a good little sheep and grade some papers, so your students can grow up and get murdered in droves by your majesty."_

_Bellamy glares, chest heaving, and they're nearly nose to nose. "We're doing what needs to be done, big brother. Whether you like it or not."_

_The door slams behind him. Muffled voices carry on without him after seconds pass, until he can hear only the sound of his breathing. His hand shakes as he fishes for an envelope, trembles as he sets the pen to paper._

_His sister, his responsibility._

**_"I write this as a loyal citizen hoping to deliver a timely warning to his highness and the Castus royal guard of a conspiracy..."_ **

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When the door unlatches, Murphy snaps his eyes up from his hands and watches with deflating relief as Bellamy shuffles in, disheveled and looking shattered, but alive. The guards shackle him and leave as soon as they came, not sparing either of them a second glance. Bellamy doesn't sit, curling up in his little corner like he is wont to do when he returns from that unknown place.

Crying Girl does not come back. It's only the two of them now. "Dropping like flies," Murphy surmises, watching the door as Bellamy paces. Suddenly, a thump. Another, and another and another and another. Bellamy pounds the wall until he leaves faint red prints on the steel, and then sinks down with his back to it, crying unabashedly and cradling his now-injured hand. Murphy goes pale.

He's never seen the curator like this before and wishes that he never had the displeasure to do so.

After staring uselessly and worrying his lip for a moment too long, he crawls over and sits next to Bellamy. The chain strains to pull him back, but he stays. The other man chokes on his sobs a little while longer, tears dripping from the tip of his nose onto the floor.

Murphy wouldn't know what to say even if he didn't have a brass tongue, so he takes Bellamy's hand instead.

Their fingers thread and intertwine almost habitually, in a way so natural and sensible that Murphy wonders why they haven't been doing it all along. He looks down at the bruised, freckled hand in his grasp, pinpricks of blood bubbling along the surface. Bellamy doesn't pull away, squeezing hard like someone's performing open-heart surgery on him, so they sit that way for awhile. Staring at the gray wall across the cell, knuckles resting against the cool metal of the floor between them, fingers locked tight. The silver star of Murphy's charm bracelet rests, cold and small, between the heels of their palms.

Minutes, hours, days.

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_It is not this home's first taste of blood._

_She swings again and again and again, her fists crack against his mouth, his bones. His face feels like one open wound._

_"You did this!" she screams, voice wrecked by anguish and heartbreak. "You killed him!"_

_She shouts more things that he cannot hear-- terrible awful things like 'dead to me' and 'murderer'-- for his ears are ringing and there is two of everything in the room. He catches himself against the edge of the kitchen counter and wedges his arm over it, kneeling like a disciple as he takes the hits that don't stop coming for what feels like a very, very long time._

_She stops and stares for a moment, drawing her hands back and trembling. She turns away just as the tidal wave spills over onto her cheeks, starts shoving things into a school bag. Bellamy sees a flashlight going in and is then distracted from the rest of the contents by a long string of red spit oozing from his mouth. A thick pounding in his ears muffles the sound of her nearly ripping the front door from its socket, and he can see the blurry outline of his sister's body against the dark street looking back at him. He sways against the counter, mumbles something that he means to be "O."_

_She whips her head around and the house shakes when she leaves._

_He slumps down against the cabinets and holds his hand under his chin, watching the blood from his mouth make a little puddle inside of it. His eyes shine with unshed tears that won't fall; not for many, many years._

_He had only ever wanted to protect her._

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Bellamy laughs, chest stuttering where he lies on his back on the floor. Murphy sits at his side like they did in the black bed in the caravan only days ago, and feels some unfamiliar kind of white light blossom in his stomach at the sound.

"What else?" the curator says, tracing seams in the ceiling. They've been musing about how Murphy had planned to throw away his newfound riches since the suns were up. It's night now, and Bellamy's turned it into a big joke that doesn't seem to get old to him. But Murphy doesn't mind.

Murphy shrugs. "I've always wanted an RC car. I would've bought a couple just to crash. Strapped some carbon dioxide cartridges to them. I read about that in a book once."

"A _science_ _book?"_   Bellamy asks mockingly, grinning with teeth and all.

"Yes," Murphy says matter-of-factly, brows raised in a challenge. "Physics, actually. I am a well-read man of many tastes despite what the media may lead you to believe. And there were pictures."

Bellamy snorts, honest-to-Old-World-God _snorts_ , and a big, dopey smile stretches across Murphy's face. He can't be bothered to adjust it.

"I think Raven probably would've demanded to trick out your little CO2 dragsters," Bellamy says. Murphy nods, propping his chin in his hand as he watches the smooth, round edge of that orange moon peeking into the microscopic cell window. "I think they all would've really liked the things you had in mind for them, you know."

It's a peace offering if Murphy's ever seen one, a massive white flag that he'll grab with two hands. It's, _I understand now._ It's, _I forgive you._

"I had something for you, too," he mutters into his palm. Bellamy sits up onto his elbows, looking at Murphy inquisitively.

"What was that?"

"I said- I said I had something for you too."

Bellamy watches him for a while in that quiet, ponderous way of his, dark brown eyes flickering between Murphy's blues. "Oh," he says dumbly, like he hadn't thought of that. Like he hadn't expected anything at all.

"A museum," Murphy says quietly, peeling away the aglet of his shoestring absent-mindedly. "For your collection. We could build it right in the middle of the I.C. Roman-style columns, huge, fancy exhibits, all the works. We could wear stupid uniforms, and we could have a library or something inside, with books for people to read about artifacts, enchantments and curses and all that. I'm not sure if that would make sense. I guess we could make them in separate buildings. And, anyway, we could have arches and glass doors and shit; have it be a real big, open space. Maybe a fountain outside."

Bellamy's not saying anything, just watching him with this star-struck expression, like Murphy's making up a new language.

"And silver stars on the ceiling," Murphy adds quickly, considering whether they would be paper or metal, the real deal. Maybe, if they really shell out, they could even have one of those planetarium star maps--

Bellamy surges forward and crashes his mouth against the other man's, kneeling over him at a contorted, awkward angle and pushing Murphy back onto the floor. His heart thrums in his throat and he stares, stupidly, cross-eyed, at the freckled, scrunched place between Bellamy's eyebrows. There's a warm pair of lips on his and only one person they could belong to and yet he's again having a bit of trouble with the math.

"Sorry- _mmph-"_   Murphy snaps out of it and cuts Bellamy off before he even starts, snaking his hands up onto Bellamy's shoulders and pressing his lips against the other man's, drawing a surprised noise from him that buzzes against Murphy's mouth. He's not going to be driven into the floor and pushes back, righting them and climbing into Bellamy's lap in a way that feels juvenile and awkward but exponentially more comfortable. Bellamy stops moving for a moment and Murphy wonders if he's crossed some invisible line, but they'll die soon enough and he was kind of under the impression that it would be acceptable to jump the gun a little, steal a few bases...

Bellamy resumes kissing him with newfound passion and aggression that stops Murphy's spiraling concerns in their tracks, and Murphy wasn't intentionally giving Bellamy the go-ahead he apparently needed to do... _this,_ but there's a warm mouth on his neck and warm hands on his waist and he couldn't find the breath to complain even if he wanted to. He gasps involuntarily as teeth graze the place where his Mark should be, and Bellamy makes an amused little sound against his skin, like he's laughing.

"Fuck you," Murphy hisses, tilting his head back further with his eyes closed. The curator redirects his attention to the sensitive place below the conman's ear and behind his jaw, and Murphy... well, he wouldn't be in the state of mind to recall his name if anyone asked.

"Gladly," Bellamy answers, gruff, and Murphy snaps his eyes open at the ceiling.

He's learning quite a lot about his friend lately.

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_Bellamy snaps a lid onto his coffee and smiles at the barista. The corkboard in the coffee shop is crowded with paper announcements and notices. He fishes around in his backpack and pins another poster against the three-years-worth of others buried there. Missing Person. 5'5", 125 pounds. 19 years old. Female. White, brown hair, green eyes. If you have any information, please contact shop owner._

_"It would help to have an address," the owner of his favorite I.C. coffeeshop had advised, so long ago._

_Well, it would help if someone else was willing to live in a van and drive in circles around the world for three years too, but sometimes things just don't go our way, he had thought._

_"Yeah, probably," he had said._

_He meanders out into the peach sun and sidles up to the newsstand, exchanging a greeting with the old newspaper vendor who charitably allows him to read and replace for half the price. He finds an open spot on a bench by the fountain and unrolls his paper, squinting against the sun and a long, hot drag of dark coffee._

**"YOUNG REBEL 'RED QUEEN' OVERTHROWS CASTUS CROWN. A NEW BEGINNING FOR THE PEOPLE?"**

_5'5", 125 pounds. 19 years old. Female. White, brown hair, green eyes._

_Coffee splatters over the headline. Bellamy does not read and replace._

_For the next five years, there will be stranger headlines. Headlines about Red Orders, Dark Years, Loyalty Ceremonies, royal bounty hunters for hire, and a Queen who is more than willing to speak with any subjects who collect magic artifacts._

_For the next five years, Bellamy will run for his life._

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"You're not doing it right," he insists, taking the slice of bread from Murphy's hands.

"You're ruining the game," Murphy mutters.

Bellamy frowns, smoothing his square of butter over his toast in creamy stripes. "You're ruining my breakfast," he rebukes, watching Murphy spread his own butter in spirals. "Who does it like that?"

"This method makes for a flavorful experience. Yours is too uniform. I'll have bread and butter, and you'll have bread that tastes like butter."

"That is the exact same thing."

"It's too nuanced for you and your inferior palate," Murphy murmurs, turning his nose up and taking a bite of his toast that crunches unpleasantly loud in the barren cell.

Between last night, which still makes him pink in the cheeks to think about, to the quaint little prison breakfast they're sharing now, Murphy almost forgot that they weren't home, that things weren't going be alright. Almost. Murphy is, again, not very good at math, but if he's the last prisoner left aside from Bellamy, today's the day.

Bellamy seems to think the same, looking suddenly forlorn as he chews his lackluster breakfast and stares blankly at the corner where Crying Girl would've been, at the place where Murphy is and where he won't come back to.

"Hey," Murphy eases, drawing his attention onto him. "I've still got a few tricks up my sleeve."

Bellamy smiles, but it's sad and disbelieving and makes little effort to humor Murphy's ambitions.

It's going to have to, Murphy thinks, as the door swings open and they're wrenched up onto their feet. Bellamy stares at him in horror until they're wrestled into the hall and forced in opposite directions, and Murphy wonders, hands bound behind his back and iron sconces appearing less and less often as they near a tall, menacing black door, listening to Bellamy fight and argue and scream at the guards from the other side like he never has before, what the hell he's gotten himself into.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone... uh... everyone okay?


	6. the golden eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Golden Eye; an amulet crafted by an ancient Hydromage grieving the loss of her wife, to protect worthy lovers from eternal separation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS A GRAPHIC CHARACTER DEATH]
> 
> ☆ Copy and paste in new tab to set the mood: https://youtu.be/JR2LGZRuo90 ☆

 

Look closely. Our hero is in pain. He folds his hands together and rattles them in a silent prayer, lucky dice inside, knees on the floor and begging like a mourner. Not quite the man you've come to know, is it?

This kind of pain that you see before you is an excruciating pain, the sort of pain that comes from being intimate with the possibility of changing the outcome of a tragedy, if only you were stronger, faster, better.

A crowd roars in the distance, thousands of fingers clutch the fence and shake it until the chains chime. You are among them, paying close attention, aren't you? This what you came for, after all. The greatest show this world has ever seen.

"Please," Bellamy pleads, "Not him."

The royal advisor looks down upon him with an expression that's halfway between pity and fury. "Stand up," she orders, if not spits. He searches her eyes, and then clambers up to a stand that's on its way to being an accident if he can't steady himself. "Don't you see, you fool?" She sounds furious and sad. She sounds like a woman who has loved and lost.

He stares, vision blurring at the edges and thoughts coming and going too erratically to catch hold of. "These lives are in _your_ hands," she says under her breath, drawing him close by the collar. His eyes dart to the window in the door frantically as he struggles to make sense of her.

"She won't let me lose."

"She is not faster than a sword," she answers. In the midst of a thick fog of fear Bellamy has trouble grasping the weight of this.

The guards pound on the door and she holds his eye with ferocity and belief. She nods. He returns a shakily mirrored gesture and looks forward as he strides to the hatched gate on unsteady legs. Across the arena he sees blue eyes narrowed in fury, teeth gnashing, lean muscle thrashing and spindly legs kicking. Murphy will fight like a rabid animal until they have to either throw him into the pit before he's been welcomed or put him down in the archway. Bellamy wraps his hands around the gate and watches them finally restrain him, watches Murphy wrench one hand free and smack his fist against the helmet of the guard in front of him just hard and obnoxiously enough to be thrown to the dirt.

Murphy is young and fiery and full of ambition. Murphy is the boyish desire to stomp on dandelions, the human flaw of reading the last page of a book first so as not to cry later, muddy knees and screaming glory at the end of a soccer field, clumsily stitched wounds and laughter in the dark. Murphy is fighting until the very last breath.

Bellamy doesn't want him to die in here.

He chooses an estoc made to thrust and pierce, one that will make it easy and fast and clean should either of their hands be forced. He stares across the dirt as the gates begin to lift and Murphy stops his struggling, meeting his eyes for a fleeting second before they dart around the arena, the crowd, up to the Queen. He's a trapped rat looking for an out.

"Jonathan Murphy, fraud."

The curator nearly laughs at the irony of it all.

"Returning champion, Bellamy Blake."

He watches Murphy, who stops in his tracks.

"Murder."

There is no change in his expression. Bellamy's heart pounds as the gates rattle in their sockets from above.

"Welcome to your second chance," she says. "Be the last," and Murphy, despite the sweat rolling in rivulets down Bellamy's forehead and the six-letter-word still echoing in the air, forgoes the weapons table, strutting out with nothing but his unlocked shackles on a chain to arm him as the Canetimage growls out her gunshot from behind the throne above.

Murphy surveys the sword in Bellamy's hands and slows down as he comes closer. Bellamy flicks his eyes up to the Queen, aims at her a miniscule shake of the head. _"No. Not this one."_ She averts her gaze and ignores the gesture.

When Murphy's close enough to reach out and touch, he stops, and there's something skittish behind his eyes. "It's not how it sounds," Bellamy starts, feeling too small for his own skin.

"I don't care," Murphy cuts him off, snapping his eyes to the crowd, sweeping his analytical gaze across the wooden beams holding up a stone ceiling, fixed with fluorescent hanging lights, a formidable collage of generational technology and historical architectural styles. "What we did in the past doesn't matter. What does matter is how the hell we're supposed to get out of this. Any ideas, Boss?" He quirks a brow and runs a finger across his nose, a nervous tick and a little performance to create a blasé façade to don for himself, if not for anyone else. Bellamy has to take a moment to move past the clear and thoughtless confession of trust. To be at odds with a named murderer and returning "champion" in the Ring and consider them an ally is a feat that only the conman could make possible, and so carelessly at that.

Bellamy grabs him by the collar of his shirt and jerks him forward a little, trying to make them look like enemies. Murphy scowls, but allows himself to be yanked around like a ragdoll for a moment. "Can you stall? Just, act?" he asks when their faces come close, glancing nervously between Murphy's eyes, pearls of jade that flash like lightning. He likes the sound of this.

"Yeah," he says, shoving Bellamy away and crouching into a stocky fighting stance. A troubling little smile wavers on his lips. "I can do that."

Murphy doesn't intend on losing an opportunity to make his theater debut, as he backs just far enough away to safely swing his chain in a wide circle above his head, haloing it fast and hard enough to invoke the sweeping, intimidating sounds of air forced out of place. The crowd erupts into screams and cheers as he uses the momentum to aim it in front of himself and create black figure-8 streaks of infinity, closing in on Bellamy. An infuriating little smirk crops up on his face as Bellamy twirls his sword and rolls his eyes at the uproar of the audience, all in the feisty underdog's favor.

"Crowd pleaser," Bellamy both commends and shames, and Murphy lifts his brows in an expression of boastfulness as his chain makes contact with Bellamy's sword and chimes dangerously, the sharp sound of metal on metal.

"It's showtime," Murphy answers in the way of explanation, and winks, something snotty and cocky. Bellamy considers, for a brief moment, killing him.

The showboating carries on as they fake a close-encounter, struggling against one another's weapons, during which Bellamy pushes Murphy back toward the arena's center to avoid any foul play by the Queen, who might use the crowd's blind spots against the walls to her advantage in forcing Bellamy's victory. Murphy, in turn, charges, and wraps his chain loosely around Bellamy's throat, pretending to tug from behind. Bellamy winces and places his hands on the thick chain like he's pulling at it, keeping it from strangling him. The crowd eats it up.

"What are we stalling for, again?" Murphy whispers into his ear, and Bellamy pockets the sensation for later while trying to focus on the task at hand. Murphy tugs him closer when he doesn't answer, the line of his body up against Bellamy's back. And that's not helping fantastically.

"I'm thinking," he hisses, panting from the exertion and the awkward angle he's at, arching against Murphy in the appearance of an attempted escape.

"Well," Murphy whispers, mouth again much too close to the sensitive shell of Bellamy's ear. He's paying his own distracting actions no mind, eyes flicking nervously between the ravenous crowd and the Queen, who's watching them like a hawk. "Think faster."

Bellamy nods against his shoulder and pretends to elbow his opponent in the gut, who drops the chain and feigns hurt, crouching and holding his stomach. Bellamy scans the audience as they heckle him, booing ferociously. There are wide doors leading into the arena, but they're blocked by armed guards. There's no way that, even in some miraculous feat of levitation, they'll get through those.

Murphy creeps forward and leaps into a charge, and Bellamy kicks out and holds just a millisecond long enough for Murphy to throw himself against the sole of his boot and stumble backwards, after which he'll fall onto his back. Bellamy takes the time between as an opportunity to observe the arena gates, to wonder if he can slash through without being stopped, take out the guards and make it through the rest of the castle without either of them being snagged-- which is a shot longer than the equator-- when a sudden agonized howl of pain rings in the space between his ears.

No sooner than Murphy "loses" his balance and hits the ground, a strange, unnatural buzz of energy moves in a slow wave past Bellamy's eyes, just enough to be detectable, like the wiggle of heat on the pavement. Murphy bites down on a third groan with a grimace and curls onto his side, clutching the back of his head as if he'd hit it on the ground too hard during his fall. His fake fall. Bellamy glances up furiously at the throne. The Red Queen has many royal advisors and Mages wandering about the arena overhang, but a Psychemage, made evident by the royal Mage tattoo of a black eye in the center of their forehead, is standing by the throne with their hands slightly unfurled as the Queen watches Murphy closely, curiously, like a science project. Bellamy growls, anger filling him to the top of the skull, and he races toward Murphy, slashing the air with the estoc. Murphy grumbles and rolls onto his back, looking like he'd rather have a minute before Bellamy pins him and pretends to be pushing his sword against Murphy's chain.

"What the hell was that?" he grounds out, face screwed up against the remnants of pain and looking breathless. "Not exactly my usual pessimist's headache."

Bellamy plants his knees in the dirt on either side of Murphy's waist to conceal the hand he smooths along the conman's side in a gesture that he hopes is more comforting than uncharacteristic. Murphy looks at him with a face, first, of shuttering surprise and affection, and another that predicts an onslaught of bullying. Bellamy cuts him off before it starts. "It's rigged," he hisses, wide eyes darting through the dark-robed Mages circling up above. "She's punishing me. They aren't gonna let anyone but me come out of this ring the victor."

Murphy frowns, grinding his chain along the estoc if only to make a harsh sound that momentarily appeases the newly tepid crowd. Their chests heave, their eyes interlock as Bellamy's hand stills in the soft dip of Murphy's waist. The conman flattens his mouth into a hard line, like he's made a decision. "Then you have to kill me."

Bellamy stares, face twisting up with fear. He shakes his head _'no'_. The gesture is enough to enrage Murphy to the point of hooking a leg around Bellamy's hip and flipping them, pressing down on his throat with the chain only enough to look convincing. Bellamy swallows. "No, no way in hell," he says aloud. Murphy pushes down a little harder to show that he's serious, a fire burning in his wild stare. Bellamy strains against the press of the chain, coughing.

Murphy switches his gaze rapidly between Bellamy's eyes, brows knit in an expression of fury and desperation. "Bell, you have a family to get back to. I don't," he says, and Bellamy notices the nerves traveling his arms for the first time, the tremble of his lip.

"No," he whispers. Murphy looks pale, as if a ghost has gone through him. _"No,"_   he repeats, louder, and throws Murphy off of him. The crowd roars, banging against the fence like silverware against a table, hungry for action and for blood, and then silences abruptly as Bellamy makes his way toward the center of the arena, body shaking like a leaf as he twists the estoc in his slick palm, stares down at his own abdomen.

_"She is not faster than a sword."_

"You can fight and one of you can survive, or you can both be executed for your crimes instead. Your choice," that ragged, thunderous voice of the Queen's chimes in, and Bellamy looks once over his shoulder to find Murphy pacing the length of the arena, dragging his hand along the black fence lacing over a thick cement half-wall, meant to keep fighters from breaking through, and tracing the corners of high, dark, wooden beams.

"You know," comes a sonorous voice, loud and strong and bold enough to match even the ruler's, "the Roman Colosseum in the Old World was _much_ more architecturally imposing than this little dogfighting octagon. Probably more structurally sound, too." The crowd falls silent, hundreds of pairs of astonished eyes shifting between this loud-mouthed, nobody criminal pacing a blood-stained pit, and the ruthless, feared Queen sitting stunned upon her throne.

"Murphy..." Bellamy warns through his teeth, inching closer. The conman ignores him, eyes traveling up the height of the fence that cages them inside of a dome.

"What is this? Chicken wire?" he adds, rattling the fence noisily, and then crouching down to tear the piercing bottom of the fence out from the ground. The metal tears up from the dirt with limited effort, flicking chunks of clay out from under it as he pulls. "Oh, wow. I mean, I could just crawl right under here," he says, folding his hands behind his back and ducking down to inspect the damage he's done to the barrier, but making no move to escape. Bellamy feels himself sweating through his shirt as he watches the guards in the tunnels look toward the Queen for orders, who's come to a stand with her staff in hand. Murphy glances her way too, looking satisfied with the reaction.

It's a suicide mission.

_"Murphy,"_   Bellamy pleads quietly, blood pounding in his ears. "Don't do this."

Murphy saunters toward the center of the arena to meet Bellamy, dragging his chain in the dirt behind him. He turns once, twice, and then a third time, zagging in his path and making his way back toward the edge of the arena. On anyone else it might look like aimless wandering, but Bellamy sees him, the dangerous, determined glint in his eye. The deliberateness of his movements. He's lifted the bloodied, darkened, old dirt from the surface and carved a massive letter _'M'_ ' in the ground, one that every member of the audience has no choice but to see.

"'M' for Murphy," he says, cocking his head as the monarch stares him down, and Bellamy feels himself drifting closer like an animal, an animal whose territory is being encroached upon as the guards move closer to the crosshatch gates that separate them from the nuisance in the arena. Then, Murphy smiles, a big, bright, beautiful smile, and points his shackles at the Queen.

"'M' for Mage murderer."

Bellamy's blood runs cold.

_"ENOUGH!"_ the Queen shouts, but it's nearly drowned out by the incessant murmur and gasps of the crowd, the sudden flashing of bulbs on kineticams as people take photos of the symbol Murphy's drawn in the dirt, photos of the maniac willing to pull a sociopolitical stunt of this caliber. Photos of the rebel putting himself to death before his government can.

_"Murphy,"_ Bellamy begs again, close enough to be heard now. Murphy shoots him a glance seemingly without wanting to, and the curator sees the sharp edge of a pained, scared face behind the mask; the face of a boy who's about to die.

Murphy watches him out of the corner of his eye, sweeping a hand around to gesture at the whole of the arena. "I mean, _really_ poorly constructed," he carries on, gaze locked onto Bellamy and skittering around his features as if he's a painting that Murphy's trying to memorize the colors of. The rattle of the gates rising goes unheard past the heartbeat in Bellamy's throat. "No sprinklers, and these beams..." he muses loudly, loud enough for everyone to hear. He tears his stare from Bellamy and surveys the wooden posts traveling up from the base of the fence to cross along the ceiling, parallel to one another. "Are these oak?" he asks, glancing up curiously to the Queen, who, as expected, does not entertain the question.

The guards are closing in now, gathering at the openings of the archways and moving in some neat formation toward the fighters to restrain Murphy, to take him out back and put him down like a dog. They won't let him be a martyr, and all the charmed subjects in the stands above will go on thinking their dictator tried her best to be merciful toward an unruly criminal who just didn't know how to be grateful, just couldn't follow orders. Perhaps if he had obeyed, they'll say. Perhaps if he hadn't been a criminal in the first place, they'll say. Perhaps the good receive what's good in the world and the bad receive what they deserve.

Bellamy can't do anything. If only he were stronger, faster, better. They're at his sides now, moving past him to surround Murphy. Bellamy can see the tremble under the young man's skin, the tears beading in his lashes. Murphy will die alone in the cold shadow of a castle at the hands of his sister's disciples, and Bellamy will murder innocent people until he's sure there's no getting home to keep his family from combing the desert for the rest of their lives, and then he'll impale himself on a rapier like Rosie Higgins and then there will be nothing. Nothing at all.

"Would be a real shame if something happened..." Murphy says over the murmur of the crowd, smoothing a quaking hand along the grain of the wood. He locks eyes with Bellamy, then, and shifts them toward the tunnel as if to say, _"Run."_

"Like a fire."

The boy lights up like a match.

Flames scream out of him in vicious hues and suck the oxygen from the air in one fell swoop. It's burning flesh and hotter than the sun. It's flames licking stripes up the oaken posts and striking across the beams overhead as the arena erupts into terror. They're trampling one another to make it through the doors, sacrificing each other in the deindividuating smoke which veils them.

Bellamy falls over himself to find shelter inside the tunnel, peering out with wet, wild eyes as the wood splits from the beams, fences melt, and his senses are assaulted by the crackle of spreading flame and the thick, deep smoke curling like a black thunderstorm overhead. As Murphy burns alive and takes the Ring down with him, Bellamy knows that this wasn't about him at all.

_"She dies in the Ring like all good Mages do, right? So much for fucking magic. It kills people, that's all it does. We kill people with it and we kill people for killing people with it and we kill people just for having it."_

A beam crunches overhead and a burnt splinter of wood twice his size splits from the ceiling and slams against the ground, breaking in two and shaking the arena wreaked by havoc.

This was revenge. This was ending an era.

This was a rebellion.

Wires snap from the heat overhead and Bellamy knows he should leave while he still can. He stares, mindless, as overhead lights crash from the ceiling and explode against the ground, floors below. A guard screams, trapped beneath one, impaled by glass and burning alive. The castle bleeds chaos, and yet, Bellamy can't move. He can only sit on praying knees in the archway, watching the little orange body in the epicenter of it all come down to a flicker-- the deep tangerine silhouette of him among his own flame an image that will be burned into Bellamy's memory forever-- and collapse.

"What are you _doing?!"_ someone shouts, tugging his shoulder roughly. He can't tear himself away. The amphitheater keeps crumbling, falling down around them in meteors as the curator watches what's left of Murphy's body fold. "Bellamy!" they scream, shaking him by the shoulders so his insides rattle like a rain stick. "We have to _go!"_

She crouches in front of him, all dark satin and sunken emerald eyes. The Red Queen.

His baby sister. _Octavia._

He emerges slowly from his trance, like seawater rolling off the body. "Get out of here, O," he growls as he moves from his crouch to a stand. He shoves her toward the end of the tunnel and thunders his way out from the overturned halfpipe.

"I am _not_ letting you die!" she screams, before a hacking cough wracks her body with short convulsions. When she recovers, she catches up to him out on the battlefield, pleads for him to escape with her, desperate and clinging to his clothes, yanking his arms like a child. The irony is not lost him, but there isn't time. He shrugs her off and walks into the fire, march turning to a jog turning to a sprint as lights, beams and metal crash down around him, doused in flame and licking at his heels like demon dogs.

Murphy's body lies face-up, fists clenched, arms curled toward itself and locked in their position. What's left of his, Bellamy's, clothes are melted to burnt flesh. The skin of his legs, groin, waist, stomach, arms, throat, and chin are deep crimson or blackened, blood and charred bone. The places where his energy field was strongest are the color of glowing embers, but intact: the top of his head down to his mouth and ears, his hands, his heart. 

"No," someone says, and their voice is shattered and weak and sounds an awful like Bellamy's.

Bellamy steels his stomach and kneels to gather Murphy's body into his trembling arms. Octavia covers her mouth and nose with a strip of satin from her dress and claws at Bellamy, pulling him desperately back toward the tunnels. "He's dead!" she shouts in a wrecked voice, coughing. He cradles Murphy like a child against his chest, staring down at his slack-faced, empty expression. "Bellamy, we have to go, leave him!" Bellamy lowers himself onto his knees, unresponsive. Shock, maybe. Heartbreak, even. Octavia attempts to use sanguimagic to wrench his arms from Murphy, but Bellamy grits his teeth against the pain of resisting and holds him tight, staring blankly as the flames threaten to envelop them completely. The ring of fire is closing in around them. The ceiling creaks.

_"He loves you, just so you know."_

An ocean wave rolls in from the halls and lifts bodies, dead and alive, from the stands. Hydros and Fumus in thick crimson suits wash waves over the arena from inside protective shields of water, weaving and wafting thick smoke out of the doors, down the halls, through the windows.

Octavia leaps to a stand and waves frantically, getting the attention of a firefighter who sweeps her hands in an arching motion and threads two thick streams of water down around them, atop them. She cries out in relief and sinks to her knees by her brother's side, dropping her face to her hands and crying as the blazing fire around them is snuffed down to a sizzle and the air becomes breathable again, a sensation like sun slotting through the canopy after a storm.

The bedlam noise quiets, and the firefighters carry the injured remnants of the crowd out into the halls as the others soothe the remaining flames to a simmer. Two guards lie dead, trapped under debris, and the Queen cries, not for her subjects, and not for her castle.

Bellamy keeps his eyes on Murphy's pallid, waxy face through it all, sweeping wood ash from his forehead, his cheeks. He doesn't check for a pulse; there's no need.

John Murphy, who was prepared to fight tooth and nail to see it all through. John Murphy, who, in all his short life, had only ever wanted wonderful things to happen. Curious, invigorating, electrifying, wonderful things. John Murphy, who had known no lovers to survive save for loss and continued to play the game, in some bullish, persistent hope that things might turn out alright. John Murphy, who had come to take from Bellamy, and who in the end, in some twisted, bloodied, godless turn of events, had given his life for him.

John Murphy, who was dead.

Bellamy exists in that silent place between the past and the present a little while longer, pulling Murphy between his knees and tucking him against his chest as spikes of water pelt down on them from above.

"Did you love him?" the Queen asks quietly.

Bellamy can't remember what he's doing here, down in the scarred pit once encased by metal fencing. The room feels so much larger this way, empty and silent save for the brushing sound of washing water and drowning ash, the ocean tide at midnight. He can't remember who she is, if not his little sister. His little sister who lost a lover to this castle just the same.

He smooths his hand across Murphy's chest, warm to the touch and miraculously, like magic, entirely unscathed surrounding his heart. "I don't know," he says, and his voice sounds wrong, tortured and thick with smoke. He hacks out a cough, something rattling and harsh. "Maybe." He watches him softly, combing through Murphy's hair with one hand and hovering above his heart with the other. There's something in his shirt pocket, something complicated and ridged. "I think I was going to." It's a smooth, sun-colored stone encased in an ornate frame, little stars and long, shiny teardrops.

The amulet.

Bellamy wants to crush it in his fist for starting all this in the first place, and he wants to treasure it forever for being Murphy's.

The fire is nothing but the remnants of hungry flames dancing in the corners of the blackened amphitheater, and water spills over their heads periodically from bucketfuls above. Water drips from the tip of his nose to Murphy's, rolls down the bridge of it and rests between his eyes like a small pearl.

And Bellamy falls apart.

He heaves dry sobs against Murphy's chest, and a small hand soothes over his back, whispering aching, burning apologies. He wonders how they must look down there being rained on, the murderer and the human bomb, the Red Queen crying over the both of them moments after pitting them against each other, ashy with the ghost of a blazing fire. He's cried himself dry these past few days, and his shoulders shake as he splits at the seams with grief all over again.

He traces a dark red line up from Murphy's burnt throat that cuts across his mouth, the warm chain of the amulet shifting against Murphy's still chest, and presses his lips to his, wound and all.

He remembers that night in the caravan; Murphy's naked silhouette framed by tangerine moonlight, the feeling of his teary-eyed face soft in Bellamy's hands.

_"You never told me the one about you."_

Bellamy wishes he had answered.

A bucket of water falls on them pointblank, and Bellamy closes his eyes under the force of it. It's a sound he will never forget, the heartbeat.

"Oh my God," Octavia whispers, as the amulet glows, soaked with water between Bellamy's fingers, light palpitating like a newborn's heart against Murphy's chest. It's erratic and weak, growing stronger, bolder, faster as water dripping down the walls, from debris, and from the air seems to weave towards them, turning a golden hue and wiggling with pulsating light as it nears. The streams move in a way that recalls rich, feathery ribbons into Murphy's skin, piercing into bone and ash softly, like gently punctured needles. Color seems to return quietly and without fanfare to what's left of his skin, and the veins in his temples pulse yellow, deeply. The siblings watch, with some concoction of horror and awe, as the places where Murphy has been deprived of bone, muscle, or skin are threaded with gold. Bone, firm and shapely, muscle, thick and striated, and skin, smooth and glittering gold. A gasp escapes Murphy's lips, and his eyes fly open wide as disks as he arches his back against the ground and cries out from the pain.

_"Murphy?"_   Bellamy breathes, absent-minded and erring on hysterical, "Murphy, Murphy, Murphy," he repeats, cupping his face as Murphy thrashes, hyperventilating. The boy locks his panicked, wild stare onto Bellamy's as he convulses, but there's no recognition there.

There are, however, two rings of gold around dilated pupils; gold where blue once was.

The water ribbons toward them in smaller and smaller threads until it stops, puddling around them and fading back to its natural, opaque color in the ashen dirt. The amulet's pulse becomes a steady thing against Murphy's heart, a lavish pacemaker that looks perfectly at home on his chest.

"Murphy, are- are you okay?" Bellamy stammers, wiping away the tears that slip suddenly from the corner's of Murphy's eyes, from the agony and the confusion of being enlivened. His yellow eyes are glazed over as they search the blackened amphitheater for familiarity, and he lies that way, silent, listening for his own heartbeat for what could've been minutes, hours, days. Then, inimitably, Murphy begins to laugh so hard that he cries.

The melted fabric is gone, dissolved in some miracle feat of magic. Octavia slips free of her black duster trimmed in ornate silver patterns, arms trembling with shock as she passes it to Bellamy's lap. Bellamy leans in close while Murphy dissolves into hysterics, and uses the hand on Murphy's back to help him into a sitting position. Murphy sits up fine on his own, moving as if he's the healthiest he's ever been, despite his uncontrollable shaking, his inopportunely timed good humor. Tears roll off of him in streams as he laughs and laughs and laughs, laughs like nothing else in the world has ever been so funny as burning down a castle and waking up Frankenstein's monster, and Bellamy finds himself laughing too. The curator threads the other man's arms, scarred golden in place of pale skin, through the sleeves of the duster, and ties it closed around his waist to shield his naked body.

The three of them sit in a crescent moon shape, alone in the silent, empty arena, and the two boys laugh until they've tired themselves out. When Murphy stops to regain his breath, he takes a moment to look around him, at the damage he's done. The siblings stare upon him like a zoo exhibit while he observes his more immediate surroundings, the amulet pulsing in his lap, his hands, pale, human skin until the wrists, Bellamy.

"Parting," he says, in a voice smooth as honey and unscathed by the smoke, "such sweet sorrow."

Bellamy dips forward and slots their mouths together, kissing the golden burn that licks up from Murphy's chin and stripes across his lips. Murphy has that same stupid face on as he did the first time, gold eyes wide and crossed before they flutter closed and he eases into it. Bellamy pulls Murphy flush against his chest and wraps his arms around his back without grace nor lightness, and pulls away. Murphy chases his mouth and leaves the curator laughing.

"Oh, was that funny?" Murphy sneers, pulling back as if embarrassed, and Bellamy snorts, can't do anything intelligent but stare at him, feeling starbound. 

"No," he mumbles finally, pulling Murphy's face in close again and smiling against his neck. The daffodil skin there feels the same as it did before everything, before the fire ravaged his body and the amulet birthed it again. "Just thought we could take it easy long enough to figure out if you're hungry for brains or not."

Murphy swallows, looking nervous suddenly as he forces a smile of his own. "Sorry about the, uh, dying," he says softly. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

Bellamy, afraid he's dreaming and that Murphy'll slip away if he takes his hands off of him, combs his fingers through Murphy's hair and watches the rhythmic movement of his own hands threaded through cinnamon strands instead of matching his gaze. "Just... don't die again, alright?"

Murphy threads their fingers together, alabaster in bronze. "Sure thing, Boss."

At Bellamy's satisfied nod, Murphy pulls away despite the other man's death grip. He peers suspiciously at the Queen, who's averted her gaze to inspect the sorry-looking ceiling.

"It's alright," Bellamy says, but the furious expression remains on his face as he stares her down, and she stares back.

How Murphy is prepared to get into another scuffle minutes after being burned alive and revived is beyond Bellamy, and in fact, he needs about fifteen years to process the day's events before he's ready to think about anything else, like yelling at his dictator sister for trying to kill them.

"Hi," she says.

Murphy spits at her, misses, but the message is clear.

Bellamy looks at her with a, _'What can you do?'_   kind of expression, and she scowls before turning her attention to the Ferrumage firefighter lowering a metal ladder down to them from the empty, blackened bleachers above the outside of the arena. The three of them clamber to a stand, looking up as gray flakes of dust and soot flit around the silent amphitheater like fireflies.

"We're leaving," Bellamy says suddenly, without removing his gaze from the ladder inching its way down to them. "With all due respect, your Highness, I think we've atoned more than enough for our sins."

"I know," says Octavia, unexpectedly. Bellamy hands her the amulet and she stares at it, moving her hands over it as the pulsation, in tune with Murphy's heartbeat, fades and stops outside of Bellamy's hands.

Octavia looks up, and begins to cry. In that moment, she's his little sister and that alone, even as makeup seeps from her eyes like black tears, even as Bellamy's body aches from mace wounds and stale grief. "I'm sorry, Bell," she hiccups, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. "I didn't know you had people, and I was so angry. I wanted to see you, and- and I didn't want you to die. I never did. And it's so hard, I don't want- I don't like being- I'm so, so-."

"Shh," he says, and holds her tight, after all these years. "I know."

He feels her move the amulet close to her heart between their chests. "C-can, can I...?" she stammers, hiccupping against his shoulder.

"Yeah," Bellamy whispers into her hair. "Come home, O."

She nods against his chest and pulls away, wiping her eyes and grabbing ahold of the ladder when it comes to a rattling halt against the ground. They watch her climb in silence, until Murphy turns to Bellamy with his brow quirked.

"What just happened?" he asks, bewildered. "Who the hell is she?"

"Family," Bellamy says, tugging Murphy against his side and staring up at the ash swimming in halos around their heads. He turns to peck Murphy on the cheek, who flushes and stares up at Bellamy like he's the strangest story Murphy's ever heard. "Get used to it."

"Wait," the conman says, smacking the curator on the shoulder. "You're a fuckin' prince?"

Bellamy just grins, shaking his head as he moves past him to climb up and out of the arena. Tulip beams of sun stretch down the halls from the open doorways above, and he can't wait to feel it on his skin again.

_"You're telling me we could've had a castle this whole time?!"_

 

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

_**One year later.** _

As far as Rubicundusol knows, the Red Queen, the fireball boy, and the Ring died in that fire. The rightful heir to the murdered King Thelonious' throne-- his son, a young man named Wells-- has implemented his own policies. The New Order. Castus becomes home to thousands of Mages, and the barriers fall. The troupe runs amuck through the kingdom with free hearts and their hair tied up on hot days, Marked or not, buying kebabs from the fryer on Murphy's old street during every visit at the conman's mysterious insistence.

"Can I get your picture?" a small girl in a sundress asks, and a grilled tomato slips from Murphy's skewer and lands with a _'plop'_   between her shiny little shoes and his boots.

"Sorry," he says, kicking the tomato into the gutter. "Sure."

Bellamy chews on a green pepper, grinning as the Golden Boy crouches next to the beaming little girl with that awkward, stiff expression which graces him in photos. The girl's mother flashes a large kineticamera at the pair and the two tourists part ways with him, leaving a multitude of thanks in their wake.

Bellamy takes his side again after they leave and they stroll down the cobblestone between the colorful buildings, watching paper lanterns swing overhead in the hot breeze. He throws his arm around Murphy's shoulders with a theatric sigh. "Sorry about all the attention, hot shot. You just can't catch a break."

Murphy picks a piece of vegetable from his teeth as they turn the street corner, suns beating down on them and catching eyes as his golden-scarred skin glitters brilliantly and dazzles passersby. "If anything I should apologize to you," he says, "it must be hard living in the shadow of your oh-so-famous boyfriend."

"Oh, yeah," Bellamy agrees, stopping to look for a glimmer of magic at a booth full of wristwatches. Murphy peruses them analytically at his side, scrolling through the mental checklist he's learned from Bellamy in the last year or so and memorized to perfection. "It's exhausting parading the freakshow around all day."

"Careful, bullying your most universally adored attraction," Murphy warns, taking another bite from his lunch on a stick as they move on from the booth empty-handed and unconcerned. It's always nice to find something new, but Murphy, the Golden Boy, is his own book of world records, his own kinetipicture adaptation, his own news headlines, his own magic artifact. As long as he can put up with charging people to ogle him, his crew is set for life. And after all, the attention doesn't hurt.

"Very, very adored," Bellamy agrees, and kisses the dandelion splotch on Murphy's jaw where Jasper punched him last week to prove to Octavia that Murphy bruises gold. His hypothesis held merit, as Murphy does. They learned quickly that Jasper, however, does not.

Murphy shoves at him, laughing and turning pink in the face, even after all this time. "Alright, Casanova. Tone it down." Bellamy grins down at him as Murphy runs a finger under his nose and avoids Bellamy's eyes like they're kids flirting in the schoolyard, but leans affectionately into his side so Bellamy can snake an arm around his shoulders. 

The two of them stop in front of a tall, purple brick building that draws foreigners in from all over the planet, the main street outside bustling with independent shops and attractions in Castus. It isn't a marble mansion out in nowhere, but the carpet is warm enough and Murphy calls it home.

Monty waves from behind a window on the fourth floor, tipping a watering can over the greens crawling along his windowsill. Murphy and Bellamy wave back. Harper slips past them with bountiful groceries clinging to her arms, passing Bellamy and Murphy two cookies from a plastic bag as she goes. Octavia sunbathes on the roof and Jasper whoops from the back of Raven's new motorbike roaring down the street behind them. Clarke adjusts the silver stars in the window on the ground floor, perched precariously over the glass display cases of hundreds, going on thousands of magic artifacts.

"Well, it's showtime," Murphy says, and the curator pecks him on the cheek and heads into the building through the yellow door with the little porthole window in it. Murphy takes a bite of his cookie to ready himself for the hundreds of eyes of today's curious patrons, and saunters underneath the swinging sign that reads:

**_'_ _Behold, the Gold Magic Oddities Show!'_ **

 

_The End._

 

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i would never do yall wrong with a sad ending and frankly im offended that anyone thought i would
> 
> this fic has been a pain in my ass and i love it so much. i hope u did too <3 if u stuck around to the end i love u and thank u so so so much for reading/leaving kudos/commenting bc it means the world dudes it really does
> 
> huge thanks to lat (sirfeit) for being so supportive throughout me posting this and always offering to help me out, and ariel (murphysarc) and stella (trash king murphamy [blackmaggiecat]) for encouraging me to post this shitstorm in the first place. they all have great murphamy fics and wips out right now so please check them out! and thanks to my buddies noah and anastasia for asking to read this even though they don't care about murphamy That's Friendship right there. i refused to give them the link so they might never see this but i'm saying it anyway!
> 
> anyhow! i hope u had fun reading this and thanks so much! i'm actually really sad this is over! no promises that i'll write anything ever again though because this made me lose years of sleep! let me know what u thought if u want bc im desperate for attention! okay bye!


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